OTHERNESS REVEALED. Post-curatorial reflections. / 55
Five interventions and a tour: The other landscape.
Carolina Lara / 57
I am the llama: three trinitary notes on Trinity.
Gustavo Buntinx / 64
The land does not belong to us.
Lucía Querejazu / 75
Desertification. Revealing the local history.
Rodolfo Andaur / 87

CHILDREN IN FRONT. Three Peoples Project. / 97
All equal and different.
Carolina Lara / 99

MENTAL TICKLES: to domesticate otherness.
The friction and the flare-ups at border zones constitute an area of research and
investigation today at various points of tension in the world. It is precisely in
these zones of direct contact with others where the construction of established
national identity is based on differences with that of those next door.
The image of neighbours, cultivated and fed over generations in bordering
countries has formed a figure of the other that is denaturalized and surrounded
by beliefs that are filled with prejudices and myths. Without a meaningful review
on a massive scale, this situation maintains its status quo in Chile, from the
War of the Pacific until today, and its effects are palpable, in clichĂŠ patterns in
everyday situations and conservations as well as in the discrimination perceived
through the media, in legal processes, and in labour treatment. The other, in a
generalised context, continues to be successfully used by governments to build
prosthesis in political discourse in order to seek out who is to blame for social
discontent, deviate attention from unsolved internal problems, or to motivate the
people under an easy slogan. Nor are there many initiatives observed to verify
the existing situation, so we could venture to say that we live with a manipulated
image of our neighbours, when perhaps we havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even seen them.
Based on this abbreviated mapping of the pathology of the image of the other
arose the idea to build a three-part platform that in the area of art would enable
investigating, debating and offering other reading on the figure of the neighbour,
on the tense relationship that results from physical closeness and emotional
distance, and on the trilateral understanding among the bordering countries:
Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
For the third edition of SACO we decided to place ourselves in a complex field
and propose a thorough rereading. We took on the historical weight of the place
where we operate: Antofagasta. Under the subtitle My Neighbour. The Other,
we established a dialogue without prejudices or biases on trilateral imagery,
historically and contemporaneously, placing emphasis on the individual and not
the state prism. During ten days of work in situ, our view was directed toward
the other human being: the Bolivian, the Peruvian or the Chilean, and the
deconstruction of their existing stigma on the other side of the border. We bet
that through art, we could go into depth on the fractured lands where few dare
to tread. And it was a wise move.
Installing My neighbour. The other in Antofagasta was a risky wager that involved
a risk of detonating rejection, which could arise from within or from outside the
team involved. In the course of the residency, both through the material presented
by the researchers and during everyday coexistence, an endless number of
9

differences, complexes, fears and blockages were made visible, not necessarily
our own but rather those we carried with us, aware of it or not, based on our
homeland. The otherness stopped being domesticated and stroked to a certain
point. The sea, like a nightmare in front of the Huanchaca Cultural Park, looked
with irreverence at our intents to establish a dialogue. Under the shadow of the
monumental ruins of a silver smelting plant that at the end of the XIX century
and early XX century was operated by Chilean, English and Bolivian interests, we
constructed a very seductive utopia. The fact that in all the works installed there
were connotations of an erotic and masculine nature present could be interpreted
as symptomatic or symbolic â&#x20AC;&#x201C; evocations of a desire for rapport, not concluded.
Despite all this, or precisely due to the unachievable appeal of our purpose, the
idea was to create a fissure in the mental wall that divides Chile and its two
neighbours to the north. It could be that we have only tickled such a straight
flagpole, but it has to start somewhere.
Dagmara Wyskiel
SACO Director

10

WHAT DOES SACO MEAN?
From the 21st to the 31st of August in the Huanchaca Cultural Park, the third
version of the Antofagasta Contemporary Art Week (SACO3) gave account of two
significant situations for the development of certain scenes at a regional level.
One was the cyclical establishment of an event that with annual themes has
been able to strategically contribute to what is local and to the decentralisation
of contemporary art, this time playing on its internationalisation. The other
significant situation: the management ability and determination of the organizers,
an independent initiative of the collective working group SE VENDE (For Sale),
Mobile Contemporary Art Platform, to carry out an encounter of this nature, which
clearly grew and now marks a milestone in the northern area and even at the
country level.
The economic boom experienced in the area thanks to mining, the growing
immigration from different regions of the country and Latin America, as well as
the resulting tensions that this whole process involves in a landscape as vast as
the desert, make the region, and especially its capital, Antofagasta, a territory
worthy of exploring, seductive, that really incites a creative energy that has been
noted through literature, the performing arts, movies and contemporary art. The
latter however has been the least visible, the least supported by institutions and
the private sphere, for being the least massive, surely, and the most difficult to
â&#x20AC;&#x153;digestâ&#x20AC;? by a public not well informed. We are talking about new practices of this
type of work with more formal and discursive risk that reigns in the international
circuits and that at a local level is better assimilated by the younger generation.
Even though SACO1 and SACO2 had already supported the Antofagasta Station of
the Cultural Centre and the Huanchaca Cultural Park respectively, SACO3 brings for
the first time the attention of a large company, Minera Escondida, also receiving
financing from the Antofagasta Regional Government and the sponsorship of the
National Council for Culture and the Arts. Without a doubt, these combined efforts
enabled the success of each of the activities scheduled.
SACO made visible a city that is experiencing very particular processes in virtue
of its history, and its situation in the national territory and on the global map. The
reflection this year could well have been typical of some great contemporary art
biennial: the problematic relationship among Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Along with the
participation of curators, artists and researchers (historians and anthropologists)
from the three bordering countries, the political density of the topic motivated
speeches, a general forum and an exposition that under the title of My Neighbour.
The Other congregated works not seen before outside the space; interventions
that were interrelated and also with the Ruins of Huanchaca, a Historic National
Monument.
11

Arriving from Peru were Gustavo Buntinx, Harold Hernández, César Cornejo and
Elliot Túpac Urcuhuaranga; from Bolivia, Lucía Querejazu, Juan Fabbri, Andrés
Bedoya and Jaime Achocalla; and from Chile, Rodolfo Andaur, Damir GalazMandakovic, Catalina González and Claudio Correa. During their residency the
group shared both inside and outside SACO, generating work and friendship
dynamics that will likely transcend the event. All the authors mentioned also
made a visit to Quillagua, where the collective group SE VENDE has activated The
Driest Place in the World, a program of actions in situ centred on this Aymara town
located 280 kilometres northeast of Antofagasta.
The collective group SE VENDE is directed by Dagmara Wyskiel and Christian
Núñez. Wyskiel is an artist, designer and art professor. Núñez is also a cultural
producer. Since the creation of the group in 2004, all the activities that have been
driven have been open to creation, working with experimental strategies and links
with the territory as well as the diffusion of contemporary art through encounters
among artists, experts and the public, and activities open to children and young
people. This year, SACO included the project Three Pueblos, where educational
establishments from the region were invited to motivate their own students to
carry out an exercise as simple as it is revealing: The idea was to freely intervene
a series of human figures stamped on a paper, characterizing the other cultures
with drawings and colours in order to provide different views of “the other”. About
670 drawings were received; 250 were exhibited in the Multi-Use Sala of the Viva
Antofagasta Library, while a selection of 110 made up a mural exhibited in the
Huanchaca Cultural Park.
During the days of conferences, other cultural initiatives were added: the Theatre
La Huella, directed by Alejandra Rojas, with the presentation of Partir, a oneperson work where the actress Valentina Escorza invited us to dwell on the
topic of immigration and xenophobia; and the Visual Arts Museum, which took
advantage of SACO as a platform for the national launching of the MAVI (Visual
Arts Museum)-Escondida Prize contest: Contemporary Youth Art. The institution
also opened a call that invited emerging artists from Antofagasta to a residency in
the Santiago BLOC workshop, with the winner announced during the days of SACO:
Francisco Vergara, who is also a journalist.
Along with the resonance in the media and in the national art scene, public
attendance also increased somewhat. SACO1, in 2012, was basically an
international exposition, Art + Politics + Environment, in the Antofagasta Station
of the Cultural Centre, which added art workshops for the entire public. The focus
of SACO2 was an encounter of four relevant projects autonomously managed
in Chile and Argentina, including an exposition in the South Wall gallery of the
Huanchaca Cultural Park. With the size and presence of the exposition in SACO3 it
was possible to include internationally important authors and works that invited
touring and giving new meaning to the enormous ruins that date from the late XIX
12

century. But experience already shows it: it is difficult to motivate the local public
to attend conferences on such specialised topics and the art samples have to be
supported by guided visits and activities for schools. Thanks to this addition, the
event this year had more than three thousand visitors, exceeding the organizersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
expectations, but at the same time generating uncertainty as to whether or not
to take on an effort that basically involves a responsibility with artistic education.
Finally, SACO3 revealed a third significant situation, which is more a question of
why the capacity to act regarding a context where contemporary art and society
are so divided, reflecting in passing on crucial topics, has to come from the other
side of cultural institutionalism and the economic powers, from autonomous
initiatives.
Carolina Lara B.
Journalist Specialising in Art

13

CONTEMPORARY ART AND RESCUE OF HERITAGE IN THE RUINS OF
HUANCHACA.
Since 2010, the year in which the Ruins of Huanchaca Foundation was created, our
vision has been to be a space of national and international reference, in cultural
development and in the conservation of the heritage of the Region of Antofagasta.
In the line of cultural development, it was very important to be for the second
consecutive year the space that welcomed SACO, Contemporary Art Week - an
initiative that in its third version has been consolidated in the local agenda of
annual events in Antofagasta.
We genuinely believe that it is very important to support this type of autonomously
managed events in the city in order to create opportunities for the convergence of
national and international artists, publics, citizenry and institutions.
The objective of the topic of the third version entitled My Neighbour. The Other,
was to establish a core for reflection, critique and dialogue through works of art
and the encounter among artists, curators and researchers from Peru, Bolivia and
Chile. Based on the local and national eventuality in a globalised world where at
some point we are all foreigners, we are â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Otherâ&#x20AC;?, it seemed to us a pertinent
topic to work from a discipline such as art in order to open the dialogue and give
way to a better society.

SACO3
Without a doubt, the third version of the Contemporary Art Week in Antofagasta
was a great success, in the mediation, participation and media coverage. This year
there was a considerable increase in the participation of the public of all ages,
thanks to the mediation with schools from the region and the dissemination that
positioned the event at a regional, national and international level.
Another important characteristic of this version was the inclusion of the Ruins of
Huanchaca National Historic Monument in the tour of the exposition, valuing the
heritage, and the opportunity for intervention and interaction with the works,
achieving a convergence between contemporary art and the rescue of heritage. The
construction inaugurated in 1892 is our focus as a Foundation, so we consider it a
wise decision by the collective group SE VENDE to interact with it and invite people
to tour it to provide perspectives on the works, creating a unique opportunity in
which contemporary art participated in the valuing of this monument.
14

MAVI RESIDENCY AND DECENTRALISATION
It was a very wise decision to launch the MAVI â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Escondida Prize contest
Contemporary Youth Art in Antofagasta and in this context in the Ruins of
Huanchaca, as well as the Museum of Visual Arts seeking to select a young person
from the region to do an intensive, completely financed residency for a month in
Santiago. These gestures have been a tremendous impetus to the decentralisation
of contemporary art and we feel proud as a Foundation to participate in these
important art processes in Chile.
This initiative, which was made possible thanks to the efforts of the Collective group
SE VENDE, completely consistent with its seeking to support the decentralisation
of contemporary art in the country, opens a new front in this annual event that is
positioned as one of the most important of its kind in the region, and opens up the
possibility of exporting our talents, which many times remain in the region due to
lack of resources, studies, and most importantly, support and guidance.
For the fourth version in 2015, we visualise having the same enthusiasm and
participation of the public and that it will be even more successful, given that
the Collective group SE VENDE as well as the Ruins of Huanchaca Foundation are
committed to publicising a quality event in the region that consolidates us as a
focus for decentralising contemporary art in Chile.
Paula Baltra Torres
Ruins of Huanchaca Foundation Manager

15

16

OPPORTUNITY FOR DISCUSSION AND DIALOGUE.
For Minera Escondida it has been a pleasant experience to join a project as
significant as the Contemporary Art Week, SACO3, an opportunity that combines
the development of emerging artists with a reflection and discussion of current
social issues.
In its third version, we were invited to be part of its construction â&#x20AC;&#x153;of the otherâ&#x20AC;?, as
a vision removed from archetypes and paradigms..
In Escondida we have the conviction that through culture it is possible to generate
opportunities for discussion and dialogue that contribute to social development,
rescuing the value of diversity and pluralism. We work to be part of actions that
encourage inclusion, since we understand that the growth of a city is closely tied
to the participation of its members.
We also want to join efforts and strengthen a unique cultural agenda in Antofagasta
and take advantage of the opportunity provided by SACO3 to launch the 9th
version of the MAVI-Escondida Contemporary Youth Art project, which to date has
brought together more than six thousand emerging creators from different parts
of the country.
This way, two high level initiatives that seek to strengthen visual arts in the country
and that constitute a great opportunity for artistic growth were merged.
Minera Escondida supports a cultural program throughout the year in the region
that seeks to facilitate access to educational activities and shows of artistic
excellence, and at the same time encourage civic coexistence in the public spaces
of Antofagasta. Examples of this are the ZICOSUR (Central Western South American
Integration Zone) International Book Fair, the Concerts Season of the Antofagasta
Symphonic Orchestra, Antofagasta a Mil, the Port of Ideas Science Festival, and
Antofagasta in 100 Words, among others. SACO3 adds to this itinerary with which
we seek to push the borders through transformative projects and initiatives that
contribute to improving the quality of life and the development of Antofagasta
and the country.
Minera Escondida, operated by BHP Billiton

17

18

ME, THE OTHER

Essays on tension and rejection

19

20

REPRESENTATIONS OF “THE OTHERS” IN THE ART OF CUSCO: “BOLIVIANS”
AND “CHILEANS”.
1. TWO EPISODES: REPRESENTATIONALITY
I refer to two anecdotal episodes that help to understand the topic: the first, in 1992,
when Marjorie Navarro and Alexander Orrego, two young people from Arica in love

Jorge Flores Nájar (figure 1)

were robbed, raped and murdered by three Peruvians. One of the parents of the
victims said inconsolably to the press something like this: “What can I feel when
I see a Peruvian, even though I know that not all Peruvians are responsible for
this crime”. The second: I went with my wife to La Paz in 2006. One day we were
having lunch in a restaurant. It happened to be that there was a Bolivian lady at t
21

he table. She asked us if we were foreign tourists. I said that we were. She told
us that while La Paz was a tranquil city we should be careful with “the Peruvians”
since they were delinquents. I had to tell her that we were Peruvians. She felt bad.
With this I want to evidence the limitation of the representations: judgements
are formed that feed stereotypes. Or, based on institutional learning, from the
State or school, we have an idea regarding other groups that we may never have
seen. Or, circumstantial experiences, with certain agents that do not necessarily
reflect the typical characteristics of the group to which they belong are extended
as a representation. What happens is that the act of representation causes a
metonymy or synecdoche: the representational assumption of the most notorious
trait of an individual of a supposed perception is extended to all individuals who
representationally participate in the person’s group; in this case, the trait of
nationality.
In the first episode narrated, in the testimony of the family member of one of the
victims there is a heroic epistemological effort: he knows that he cannot extend
the hatred of the criminal act to all Peruvians. Therefore, despite foreseeing what
he will feel, by explaining it he exorcises it. In the second episode, the Bolivian lady,
with evident empathy toward us warns us, but without it being pertinent for her to
specify that there could be millions of Peruvians who are not delinquents.
In the two episodes narrated there is a common element: in the representationality
made by the persons giving testimony, the character of whom they speak is foreign,
dangerous and not national. Nationality is an important distinguishing category.
2. NATIONAL MEMORIES VERSUS LOCAL OR PERSONAL MEMORIES
Parodi and González1 contrast the national histories of Chile and Peru, based on
historiography, lessons in school, the press or national political leaders, which
are the large histories, and the more humble histories of the actors, they say,
subnational, removed from any public policy, which extends to art, popular
religiousness, and face-to-face relations; and that these more humble stories have
a pretension. This could materialise in two concepts that while the authors do not
use them, could be used: national memories versus local or personal memories, or
that could refer, I believe, to some other instance of legitimacy, such as art.

3. CUSCO: BACKGROUND
In discussing the subject, I am interested in the image that presently exists in the
artistic space in the city of Cusco regarding “Bolivians” and “Chileans”. The topic
is not what all Bolivians and all Chileans are really like, but rather how they are
represented based on art in Cusco.
I delimit the topic to Cusco for the following reason: it is a key city in the historical
construction of the Peruvian identity; a space especially sensitive to stereotypes
regarding foreigners, especially Spaniards for obvious reasons, and Bolivians and
Chileans due to the closeness of the border and the flow of tourists, as well as for
the War of the Pacific.
The following is a very concise sketch of the social and cultural history of Cusco.
This old capital of a Pre-Colombian State, devastated by the European conquest,
had to deal with the geopolitical demands of the mother country for nearly three
centuries, and then those of the capital of Peru, constituted as a National Republic.
According to the historian Luis Miguel Glave2 the Cusco region was formed in
the Colony based on the Lima-Potosí axis, where Lima was the political centre
and Potosí, a city supplied by Cusco. In the second half of the XVIII century,
Potosí went into a crisis and added to other factors was the regional feeling of
antagonism toward Lima. In the early XIX century the rebellions, which used the
image of the Inca Empire as a recurring ideological figure, aimed at separatism
and regionalism. Cusco turned conservative in the independence process;
this came from Lima. The southern Peru economy moved toward Arequipa,
and bossism, a type of feudal practice of economic and social relations,
was the archaic closing of social and economic relations with other regions.
The early Republic faced the new intended nationality with enormous problems.
Cusco, already struck by the Bourbon reforms, the economic autonomy of Río
de la Plata, and the failure of the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II, was faced with
the prominence of the coast and of Lima. The War of the Pacific evidenced the
anguish with which the National State was born. In the early XX century, Cusco was
strengthened as an intellectual centre; a vision of its own reality was constructed
based on a set of events, among others the discovery of Machu Picchu, indigenism
and the taking of lands by incipient rural movements.
According to Yazmín López Lenci3 in the early decades of the XX century, a “fight
for representation” took place in Cusco by the residents of Cusco themselves,
2
3

overlapping with that same combination of political events and historical
developments on a global level. Indigenism is the summary of this cauldron of
culture signified by these concurrent phenomena. Carlos Franco4 indicates that
indigenism, a marked discursive ideology, is the strategy of mestizos to accede
to reclaim political power from the capital, in terms of having some discursive
representation in the national identity order.
The XX century in Peru involved a pendulous combination of de facto and
democratic regimes, the constant of which is populism. Only the so-called Peruvian
Revolution (1968-1975) assumed a radical plan of economic and agricultural
reforms, but it was frustrated in a scant number of years. The start of the XXI
century involved notable economic growth in Peru, with unequal benefit. Even
though the process of regionalisation was not able to rid itself of the defects of
the inertia of public administration from previous decades: economic conduct
centred on seeking favours and state benefits, scarce modernisation of services,
scarcely professional and corrupt public administration, and appropriation of
public assets by the state determined cultural conditions characteristic of these
factors. Nevertheless, Cusco, at least since the end of the Viceroyalty, fed itself
based on its past as capital of a glorious empire, and since the discovery of Machu
Picchu that condition was enormously strengthened, even more so by the resulting
tourism and economic flow and the admiration for that supposedly glorious past.
The consequence of that is summarised in one concept: negative discrepancy or
unsatisfied expectations. So, in Cusco, the perception of outsiders is conditioned
by that history and only just summarized. So it will be simple to understand the
prejudices or stereotypes regarding “the other”.
4. METHODOLOGY. DATA
I base the non-definitive findings on a total of ten interviews in early 2014, four of
which I was explicitly involved in; interviews on how the visual artists themselves
in Cusco perceived themselves in terms of their perceptions regarding the other.
What I intend, in terms of strategy, is to analyse the social structure of Cusco,
determined by historical processes, and based on the interviews try to find out
whether the representations of the visual artists of Cusco are a replica of the
stereotyped prejudice of Cusco or if there is a discrepancy.
The following are the persons from whom I recover explicit testimonies: Vera
Tyuleneva, 1973, St. Petersburg, with studies in Art History, has lived in Cusco

since she was 25 and is curator and art historian; Jorge Flores Nájar, 1980, Cusco,
artist graduated from the Cusco School of Fine Arts, son of an anthropologist from
Cusco and whose mother is from Puno; Víctor Aguilar Peña, 1965, Abancay, who
studied in the Cusco School of Fine Arts, is a caricaturist and directs the magazine
Chillico; Roberto Ojeda Escalante, 1975, who studied History in the Universidad
Nacional del Cusco, works in journalism and participated in the collective group El
Muro with Víctor Aguilar, and other intellectuals, let’s call them dissidents.
5. CUSCO: THE STRUCTURING IMAGERY OF REPRESENTATIONS OF “THE
OTHERS” IN VISUAL ARTS
Resuming the central topic, I investigate whether in the artistic space in Cusco,
especially visual arts, there is a perspective that is aligned with, or discrepant from
the rest of the residents of Cusco regarding “the others”, but especially regarding
“the Bolivians” and “the Chileans”. For that I propose a presumption: art and visual
art in particular, is a space where reality is creatively and fictionally created and
recreated, perhaps in a way less idealized than history as a humanist activity. A
memory can be constructed that is alternative to the national memory, which
tends to be or is assimilated into the military and nationalist view.
I also propose that in any social space, but I am thinking especially of Cusco, there
is always an interpretive structure that based on the conditions themselves and a
reading of “the self”, all other items are read from there, among other items, “the
Chileans” and “the Bolivians”.
So I am interested in finding out if the segment of art production, extendible to
the visual arts or industrial reproduction of art (cartoons, comics) could contribute
a structuring imagery to read the eventualities with a pre-defined armature or
framework of meaning, this being a replica of the stereotyped view of Cusco
society, or a certain discursive slipping away toward heterodoxy.
I assume that the discourse of Vera Tyuleneva on the Cusco artistic space is
pertinent and I add the testimonies of Jorge Flores Nájar, César Aguilar, and
Roberto Ojeda. Until the 1980’s indigenism predominated, but then with the crisis
of ideologies and the extraordinary increase in tourism and commercialisation of
the past and the Indians in Cusco, indigenism came to be very much criticised.
In art, the idea of critical, cosmopolitan and relativist internationalisation was
disseminated up to a certain point. The new vanguard generations ignore the
local and past context, or they assume it with irony, irreverence and criticism.
But indigenism did not die: it used the image of the indigenous people; artists
sell very cheaply in the streets of Cusco a product called “bomba”, which
25

are generally water colours, produced in series, with standard and simple figures:
the narrow streets of Cusco, “cholitas” or peasants, Machu Picchu.
Vanguard artists who do not take on an ideological discourse could include Carlos
Olivera, from Cusco, whose father was actually indigenous; Pachacútec Huamán,
from Cusco, son of a sculptor close to indigenism; Edwin Chávez, now older, difficult
to classify, and son of the most important archaeologist in Cusco. Those who are
idealized and irreverent believe that tourism is extremely negative for Cusco since
it contaminates the Cusco identity. Perhaps the most representative is Jorge Flores
Nájar, son of an important anthropologist from Cusco. After Tyuleneva, there is
not a systematic consumption of these artists in Cusco: the segment that could
buy their works does not, since it is a conservative sector. Also, these artists may
not live basically from their work since they are from intellectually elite families.
But also, controversially, the most important artists of these new generations
are the children of indigenous artists or intellectuals. Olivera, Huamán, Chávez,
Flores Ochoa, the most significant, are children of intellectuals closely linked to
indigenism in their time.
Regarding Chileans and Bolivians, the perception of Tyuleneva as a foreigner is that
the antagonism toward Chileans exists but is hidden, never open; and that it could
exist based on influence from the family or school, above all Bolivians as such.
There is an attitude against ethnic Indian groups from the high plains, but from
the Puno (Peru) area and not explicitly Bolivia; and this is due to the competition
of bands and rhythms from state establishments in popular religious festivals.
Then, there is none against the musicians from Cusco and Puno. Contradictorily,
they tend to be consumed increasingly more by the people of Cusco for being
considered more “modern”, erotic, individualist and sensual.
Looking at Jorge Flores Nájar: He has some works linked to heroes from the War
of the Pacific, such as El Perú nunca, nunca, nunca… (Peru never, never, never …),
constituted on a canvas, a bundle in acrylic and a recording that says “History is
written by the winners, but Peru never won a war”. Grau-man, a polychrome resin,
2007, takes the naval hero as a reference and strangely mixes him with He-man, a
comic hero from the 80’s. Mares y marinos (Seas and sailors), a mixture on canvas,
is a combination of Miguel Grau, Popeye the Sailor and Bruce Lee with a beard in
the style of Miguel Grau.
His project Made in Taiwan is more complex. It is an installation made in the city
of Cusco in 2011, a folder and a total of eight musical videos. The videos are an
expressive exercise critiquing the Cusco space: they show a Cusco garbage, with
pop songs but sung in Quechua, such as Barbie Girl, El meneíto, Baby, one more
time by Britney Spears, Vuela, vuela, Beat it by Michael Jackson, La chica ye ye and
Lambada.
26

Flores Nájar provides testimony that national heroes are relative constructions
and evidences this by taking them out of their context, extracting them from their
sacred places. The consequences for a reading of Chileans and Bolivians are clear:
territory as a reference for classifying a person is irrelevant. He believes that in art
the animosity toward Chileans that exists in broad sectors of the Cusco population
is attenuated, but the animosity against Lima is present: “… Chile has not taken
anything away from Cusco; on the contrary, Lima has taken Cusco away from being
the capital; they have relegated it”.
César Aguilar (Chillico) and Roberto Ojeda represent artistic alternatives, perhaps
more subordinate, the cartoon strips, but in the same line as Flores Nájar. Víctor
Aguilar, an expressive artist from a working-class, provincial background, has
a more aggressive discourse with Cusco. Like Flores Nájar, he criticises tourism.
He proposes the idea of autonomous, political art. He directs Chillico, a humour,
cartoon and art magazine that has been published since 1993. His criticism does not

César Aguilar (figure 2)
27

point only at the traditional Cusco resident; it extends aggressively to the foreign
capital of Lima and Chileans in particular. That is, by criticising Cusco, he critiques
what is foreign. I want to dwell on a caricature (figure 2) from Chillico No. 16, from
2005. Part of the news events of the time: two young Chileans drew graffiti on an
Inca wall in Cusco. The caricature is apparently limited to a vulgar censure of the
Chileans, but it subtly extends to the Cusco people themselves, since whoever
aggressively criticises Chileans for painting walls contradictorily carries out a
similar act. So the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s criticism is basically of the people of Cusco themselves.
Roberto Ojeda studied history but basically does journalism, cartoon strips and
caricatures. Again in him, like in the former, there is a reprehension of society,
based on the issue of the Cusco identity. In his discourse as a caricaturist, the
reference to Chile does not point at the satire of his pueblo, his people, but
rather at his State, from a general criticism of neoliberalism. From this it extends
to the presence of Chilean companies in Cusco, not for being Chilean but for
their transnational nature. I specify an important fact that synthesizes what I am
pointing out: Ojeda knows many Chileans, but who do not represent nor signify
the State or Chilean capital because they participate in alternative groups, similar
to the group in which Ojeda participates, of critical thinking and close to concerns
for art. His attention is attracted by the fact that people from Cusco generally
have a view of animosity toward Chileans that he does not share, since he knows
that the State and the media exacerbate that feeling, insisting on the history of
the Saltpetre War, but allowing the opening for transnational capital. I dwell on
a caricature of his (figure 3) that appeared in Chillico No. 28 in 2010. Under the
title â&#x20AC;&#x153;Test of global warmingâ&#x20AC;?, over the years the skirt of the high plains Indian
dancer had been shrinking: again he criticises the high plains Indians (from Puno
or Bolivia) not directly or exclusively, but rather the people of Cusco themselves,
for consuming high plains culture but at the same time criticising it.
In general, the young and heterodox critic puts salt on the wound, relativises
traditions and generates new alternative, dissident and disruptive memories. His
discourse may be less pretentious than the militant indigenism, but this relativism
is alternative to the self-satisfying flattery of the society itself.
Finally, it could be said that in this general current, the discrepancy between the
Cusco expectations of autonomy and the reality has been resolved with an attitude
that is not specifically political, in the sense of the adoption of a discourse aimed
at economic solutions and with a plan that involves politics, but rather with a
discourse that is specifically artistic and that by criticising what is foreign criticises
its own.
28

6. NON-DEFINITIVE COROLLARY
1. The discourse on the other does not describe reality but rather the structure
based on concrete historical experience. There needs to be an awareness of that
historical experience in order to understand the discourse regarding the other.

Roberto Ojeda (figure 3)

2. The capacity of representation can come from institutional learning, without
having had the experience of knowing. So “the Chileans” or “the Bolivians” can
be defamed or disdained without knowing any Chilean or Bolivian. Alternative
experiences, such as artistic, on the contrary can constitute a representational
opportunity that is less prejudicial and violent.
3. Art is an opportunity for a memory alternative to the national memory and has
the chance to overcome the representations demanded by a historical, national
and even regional burden, racked with dramatic memories of anguish, of violence.
The burden of the national memory tends to be a hindrance.
4. Art has the potential to alternate with nationality to take away the weight of history,
not forgetting it as a type of amnesia but rereading it with less affectation. Not only
based on art, but from a more personal and intimate standpoint, such as the act of
exorcism by the family member of the murder victim that I spoke of at the beginning
29

of this discourse, in order to avoid being eaten away by the contamination of
the representations of “the others”. There is no “the Chilean”, “the Bolivian”, or
“the Peruvian”; there are millions of people who go about their lives through
nationalities.
Harold Hernández
Researcher / Peru

30

THE OTHERS OF THE COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION.
1. THE APPROACH
The problem pointed out in this article is the discursive construction of the Other
Chilean and Peruvian in the collective imagination of people born in Bolivia. The
projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s field of research has been my close relationships, setting the investigative
interest on my most intimate circles, considering my family (parents, siblings, aunts
and uncles, and grandmother) as a first group, and friends as a second group.
The justification for taking on a close field of research lies in self-reflection and
positioning, considering that in my investigative quest I as a Bolivian am involved.
In this sense, I tried to understand the discursive construction of the Other
outside of official and/or media spaces, limiting myself to the discourses that have
traversed my life. For that, I ask the following research question: Is the Chilean and
the Peruvian an Other for the everyday discourses of Bolivians?
The question seeks to evidence the approach to a close, proximate and everyday
problem that I have lived with as a Bolivian. For that reason, in order to respond
to this question I turned to people1 who have been participants in my discursive
construction regarding Chileans and Peruvians. What I tried to answer is whether
Peruvians and Chileans can be considered as the Others for this group of Bolivians
and if so, what nuances make them up. This way, the position of this work was
to separate myself from the institutionalised or official discourse and contribute
based on my own closer field.
The research served as a quest or self-recognition that I hope will provide the
readers with the opportunity to hear intimate voices, fragments of conversations
that could take place at the tables of families or friends. It seems pertinent to
me to advise that the research is centred in Bolivia, on the collective imagination
of Bolivians and the perceptions that are constructed regarding the neighbouring
countries.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
In order to answer my research question I used the Internet as a platform,
obtaining various meetings by Skype, in which I took on in-depth interviews and
focus groups.

1

For reasons of ethics and to protect my informants, all the names that appear in this text are
fictitious.

31

2.1. Video Elicitation
In order to carry out this research I used a video as a conversation starter. The video
entitled: Barra chilena rompe bandera de bolivia - Bolivia 0 - Chile 2 (Chilean fans
tear Bolivian flag – Bolivia 0 – Chile 2), created by Patricio Javier Araya González,
found on the website YouTube2 with duration of one minute 17 seconds. The
image served as a video elicitation tool, as a continuation of the photo elicitation
method3 proposed by Collier (2009)4.
2.2. In-depth interviews and focus groups
As part of the work methodology virtual focus groups and in-depth interviews were
held, using the abovementioned video as a starting instrument. This tool enabled
me to make dialogues possible based on perceptions regarding the Chilean and
the Peruvian in the context of virtual contacts, where the conversation starts once
the interviewees had seen the video.
2.3. Video appropriation and the image as a result
I must admit that the way of presenting this research is not limited only to this text,
but also consists of a video made with the audios and images of the interviews,
supported by an appropriation of images from the documentary Guerra del
Pacífico (War of the Pacific), (Michel, 2011)5, from which I extracted a large part
of the historical images of the Bolivian littoral: paintings, photographs, maps and
flags.
3. THE BOLIVIAN (WARNING)
Inevitably, the course of conversations on Peruvians and Chileans flowed into
taking on the topic of Bolivians. In this sense, I and the persons interviewed were
born in Bolivia, which indicates a place of enunciation. Being Bolivian is a complex
sense of belonging, very theoretically debated.

Works such as those by Zavaleta (1969)6 or Tapia (2002)7, indicate that being
Bolivian is multi-coloured identity. The Bolivian was institutionalised by a
historically dominant society, the creoles, who invented Bolivia based on territories
and societies that already existed.
“Bolivian, on one hand, is a definition of what is common made from
the viewpoint and position of the dominant culture and class, and on
the other hand, is a set of beliefs and definitions corresponding to
the different ways in which other peoples, cultures and social groups
think and experience their mode of belonging and integration, always
incomplete and conflictive, in the economic structures and policies
of this country called Bolivia. (…). Bolivian is at the same time a way
of defining what is common via the exclusion of local cultures or via
the fragmentary and folkloric integration of elements of pre-Hispanic
cultures, on one hand, or is the product that results from the struggles
to nationalise the country”, (Tapia, 2002: 14).
4. THE CHILEAN
This section contains two parts: the first as a clarification of the methodology, and
the second, as a synthesis of the fieldwork.
4.1. Detonator
The detonator of my research started with the video recovered from YouTube
Barra chilena rompe bandera de bolivia - Bolivia 0 - Chile 2 (Araya, 2012). This was
found after remembering having heard several years ago the comments of friends,
relatives and the press regarding a soccer match between Bolivia and Chile that
took place in the Hernando Siles stadium in the city of La Paz, where a Bolivian flag
was torn by Chilean fans.
This remembrance led me to see whether there was a record on the web. I thought
that I could find images of the television news. I was greatly surprised when I found
several videos taken with cell phones or camera photos uploaded by the public
and I found that the material is even stronger when there are videos taken by
Chilean fans. So I selected one as part of the research.
4.2. Perceptions regarding Chileans
6
7

Through the interviews held I was able to determine that there is a perception
of Chileans as an Other: abusive, strong, powerful, capitalist and “European”. I
believe that this enables thinking of the construction of the Other Chilean based
on his aggressiveness.
To develop these arguments, I provide the following as part of the fieldwork.
Santiago, one of the informants, said the following regarding the remembrance
made possible by the video:
“They have behaved abusively, (…), because they had police
protection; if they hadn’t had that police protection we would have
made them eat all their flags together. So, they (…) protected by the
police, have done what they wanted that day in the stadium (…)”.
The tone of his voice evidences an emotional situation. Santiago had been one of
the thousands of spectators that day in the Hernando Siles stadium. I think that
the key word in his comment is “abusively” which leads me to think about the type
of social relations that started at that time between the Chilean fans, paradoxically
visitors, and the Bolivian spectators.
Enrique, another interviewee who was in the stadium that Saturday afternoon on
the 2nd of June 2012, close to 04:00 pm, indicates:
“Like, really abusive, and it was not only that, because that had been
before the match. During the whole match they were provocative,
(…), because the whole time they were singing: [he says it singing]
they have no sea, they have no sea, they have no sea. [becoming
serious again] That hurt all the Bolivians.”
Santiago (interrupting): “It infuriated us”.
Enrique: “All that infuriated us. (…) And then during the whole match
there had been provocation and provocation, and taunting Bolivia and
all that”.
“complete indignation, let’s say, that in our country they treat us that
way” (men’s Focus Group, June 2014. I consider the words in bold to
be the key words).
In the same way, during the conversations some of the viewpoints were
very clear in referring to the problems with Chile as historical problems that
transcend the video recorded at the soccer match, but at the same time, this
34

type of act cannot be comprehended without the historical-political context.
“I believe that this competition between Bolivians and Chileans was
not born in this soccer match; it goes much further back, (…) it goes
back to a war, to a loss of the sea, to the signing of a quick agreement
in 1904 (…) there is a whole context that always places us at odds…”
(Esteban).
During all the interviews I felt that the topic was overflowing. While it started
with the video of the soccer match, the topic quickly turned to talking about the
relations between Bolivia and Chile.
“That we lose to anybody else doesn’t matter, but not to the Chileans.
For us, the Chileans are like the maximum abuse we have, and nobody
likes to be abused, because we think that all the reclusion, all the
poverty in Bolivia is because we have been cloistered by the Chileans”
(Santiago).
Enrique would further say: “For me, I see Chile as the maximum enemy in soccer,
as the maximum enemy [he repeats], I can lose (…) against anyone, but not against
Chile (…)”.
I believe that in this case, soccer became just a lobby, an entryway to be able to
talk about patriotic sentiments, where the conversations overflowed among the
soccer field, the war and history.
In reference to the neighbourhood, Santiago said, “Chile is the bad neighbour of
the continent - it has problems with Peru, Bolivia and Argentina”. Also Esteban
said: “Chileans are abusive; Chileans are bad neighbours”.
Various perceptions related Chile with England and the United States, in addition
to identifying it as a country with a smaller indigenous population compared to
Bolivia: “Chile is seen as more conservative, more neoliberal, more pro-United
States (…)” (Julieta). This leads me to think about ethnic-racial perceptions
regarding Chileans that are linked to white, Caucasian traits. In the same sense,
she expressed her opinion:
“For me, the Chilean society is a very homogenous society; I feel it
as being very homogenous, very Western. In that sense I believe it is
a very English, very European culture. For me, Chile is the European
pueblo that lives in Latin America (…) a society that has lost its cultural
roots with Latin America (…)” (Eusebio).
In this sense, some informants also perceived that there is racism on the part
35

of Chileans toward the Bolivian populations, principally toward the indigenous
peoples. I must clarify that very critical positions were presented regarding
certain anti-Chilean positions, built on patriotism and xenophobia, but in all these
positions it was admitted that they are individual positions and do not represent
a collective position.
4.3. Perceptions regarding Peruvians
For this group, the perceptions regarding Peruvians were very different from
the responses regarding Chileans. Peruvians are closely related to family ties,
contraband networks, or networks of crime that hold a continuous relationship
with Bolivians, which led me to interpret that Peruvians are not perceived as an
Other: foreign, exotic, distant, but rather as someone close who is part of the local
social relationships.
While the idea did arise in the interviews of the Peruvian as a “thief”, “cogotero”8
or categories related to crime, at no point was it understood that this was what
Peruvians were, but rather that they were Peruvian persons, specific cases. Ramón
mentioned: “They are more enterprising people, more meddling, more deceptive,
and cleverer”. On his part, Santiago related that: “For me, Peruvians are categorised
as assailants, as thieves, smugglers”. But in all these cases they were the initial
opinions. Then, in continuing the dialogue it was assumed that they were specific
cases. In the interviews I even found them being careful about stereotyping the
Peruvians, which was different from when they were asked about Chileans.
Ana responded: “Regrettably, it’s as if Peruvians were people not very desired in
our country, and that’s bad because you can’t generalise. There are all kinds of
people everywhere (…)” (Ana in the Women’s Focus Group, June 2014).
I could understand that no problems were identified with Peru with it being such
a close neighbouring country. The interviews with Bolivians even linked a certain
cultural proximity. An example of this was the comment by Julieta:
“We have more cultural similarity with Peru, (…) there is this image
that we are more similar to Peru and we don’t have the maritime
problem. They have also suffered from the War of the Pacific and we
don’t have those points of tension that we have with Chile”.
All the interviews marked a substantial difference between the perception of

Peruvians and Chileans. For example, Enrique indicated: “Peruvians are just
another neighbour. The ones that come here may be thieves or ‘cogoteros’, but
they are just another neighbour. They don’t cause me any repugnance like the
Chileans do”.
The work in the field led me to think that Peruvians are not an Other. Peruvians
are seen as one of Us. The perceptions toward Peruvians end up being individual
perceptions, so all those who pointed out generalisations or stereotypes admitted
that they are limited and false. There were even interviews in which the people
were not interested in talking about Peruvians. I interpret this as being because
there are no evident tensions and disputes as opposed to those with Chile. I
also consider that there was no interest or importance in talking about Peru, as
opposed to Chile, where the informants had a clear agenda on the topic.
5. SEA
One of the most important conclusions of the work is to recognize the importance
of the maritime issue. The majority of the people interviewed identified the
problem of the sea as a central point of interest when reflecting on relations
between Bolivians and Chileans, a problem that subjectively excludes Peru. The
sea turns out to be a central trans-generational theme both for men and women
in the group studied. Despite this, one of the people interviewed presented a
posture that denies the topic as a point of interest for Bolivians.
In finalising this writing, I consider it important to present two comments that
seem to be central regarding the importance of the issue of the sea in the relations
with Chile, Peru and Bolivia:
Eustaquio indicated:
“There is always going to be rivalry; it is always going to be the same
until they give us, maybe a part of the sea, (…), a sovereignty, (…) you
see, we get along well with Argentina or with Peru. But the truth is
that with Chile it will always be the same until we make a pact or we
sign some agreement between both countries…”.
In the same sense, one of the people interviewed expressed all her agency as a
Bolivian, which seems very true to me, and with which I personally identify. It will
be her words with which I decide to conclude this article:
“I believe that what this government is doing is very good, because
it is awakening an awareness in Chileans that sooner or later they
have to understand, and it is quite basic and quite clear: we are
neighbours and we are going to be neighbours forever, for all eternity;
37

so the subject for them may be a closed subject, that of the sea, but I
believe that because of the way Bolivians are and for the importance
that the sea has for us, if we don’t get what we are seeking with this
government, sovereignty is a little piece, maybe ten years will go
by and another government won’t give it any importance, and then
another will appear that will go back to the issue. I believe it is an
issue that is not going to be closed until we once again have it and
Chileans have to understand that we are never going to tire, we are
never going to forget; it is something that we are not going to be able
to forget” (Fabiola).

IMAGES, IMAGINATIONS AND IMAGERY OF OTHERNESS IN CHILE.
1. SOME QUESTIONS
What difference could there be between some lines on a wall of a house in 1926
and other lines perpetrated in the year 2013? The first marked a cross on a house
in Tacna when that city belonged to Chile, and the second, done in Santiago, says:
“I hate the shitty Peruvians”. The first was done by the Patriotic Leagues1 in the
scenario of the dispute between Chile and Peru regarding the possession of Tacna
and Arica. Don’t they say the same thing? What progress have we made?

Chilean group characterised by its xenophobia, racism and nationalism that along with its paramilitary
gang mode through bullying, dedicated itself to harassing and mistreating Peruvian and Bolivian
residents in northern Chile.

39

In a similar scene: Why do some athletes continue using clothing corresponding to
the War of the Pacific to highlight a certain virility?2 Or, why is a Bolivian prisoner
in Chile different from any other type of prisoner? We remember the case of the
soldiers who unintentionally crossed the border in 2013 and were taken prisoner,
resulting in a media commotion and tension between Chile and Bolivia.
Why are enormous amounts of money spent to place a flag and to dress up soldiers
in the style of the War of the Pacific on the Morro de Arica?3
Why do we have xenophobic politicians who directly call for expelling the Bolivians,
Peruvians and also Colombians?4 Or politicians on television programs5 who in
addition to ridiculing Peruvians in that they had “invented a case”, also question
the Chilean government for not having “dissuasive military capability” to resolve
Peru’s demand in The Hague? That is, are there still politicians who justify armed
violence in order to resolve border problems?
Why are our children in public schools in Chile dressed up as marines and play
at killing Peruvians and recreating the violence of a war? To what extent do
schools reproduce the violence and normalise or naturalise it in the children
as something that is legitimate or valid? Why are some parents proud to
dress their children up as soldiers? To what can it be attributed when some
Chilean comedians always bring up the “little Peruvian” or the “little Bolivian”
in their jokes, ridiculing them based on stereotypes and prejudices?6 Why
to the Chilean marines sing horrible phrases in their morning jogs, such as

2

3

4

5
6

“Chilean makes fun of Peruvians by using a kepi from the War of the Pacific. Chilean motorcyclist
used a kepi from the Battle of Chorrillos in the Dakar 2013 inauguration. Andrés Simón Cárevic
García is also a military parachutist who paraded wearing a kepi that the Chilean soldiers wore
when they burned and sacked Chorrillos in 1881”, headlined the website www.peru.com
“$480 million was invested in the project for the Bicentennial flag atop the Morro de Arica” headlined
the newspaper La Estrella de Arica (09-12-2013). With a flagpole 42 meters high, the project was part of
the program Bicentennial Legacy driven by the government of Sebastián Piñera.
There are various cases of politicians making unfortunate statements, among them the governor
of Antofagasta, Waldo Mora who pointed out that: “There are a number of crimes that are not
known in Chile. Some foreigners are creating problems of living together and break-ups of
marriages” (Radio Cooperativa, 14 October 2013). There is also the candidate for Senator from
the Region of Antofagasta, Daniel Guevara, who indicated on a television program of La Red that
there was “good” immigration and “bad” immigration. He also criticised the Colombian
residents in Chile for celebrating the draw that their team had with the Chilean selection in
the playoffs for the World Cup. In October 2013, Mayor Karen Rojo said: “A migratory process is
taking place in our city and is causing a lot of problems in the community. There needs
to be an end to this situation” (Newspaper El País de Colombia, 18 October 2013).
Opinions given out by Senator Alejandro Guiller in the Chilevisión program Tolerancia Cero (Zero
Tolerance), 23 January 2014.
In the 2014 version of the Festival of Viña del Mar, the comedic duo Los Locos del Humor based a large
part of their routine on ridiculing the Bolivians about the maritime demand. Faced with controversy,
they had to publically apologize after complaints from the Bolivian government.

40

“I will shoot Bolivians and cut the throats of Peruvians”?7
To what degree are these and an infinite number of other situations inscribed
based on selective xenophobia toward Peruvians and Bolivians, and why are these
images, imaginations and imagery that refer again to the separation, citing the
War of the Pacific directly and indirectly, in a never ending manner, so present in
everyday life?

2. OTHERNESS AS A MODERNIST AND STRUCTURALIST DRAMA
Throughout the XX century we witnessed numerous military conflicts, systematic
genocides, massacres and ethnic “cleansing”, apartheid processes, dictatorships,
etc. In all these processes a narrative that constructed the other seen as the

7

“I will kill Argentines, I will shoot Bolivians and I will cut the throats of Peruvians”, sang the
Chilean marines. The video was taken by a tourist and posted on YouTube. The images show
the members of the military as they trained in Viña del Mar. The audio reproduces the
racist choruses, indicated the Newspaper Diario Uno de Argentina, 6 February 2013.

41

source of “all evil” predominated, deriving in processes to regulate customs,
moralist discourses, construction devices and also the destruction of subjects,
giving way to regimens of truth and systems of representation and meaning.
That other was the depository of strategies to regulate and control otherness in
modernity. That construction was based on an “absent” subject, on a subject that
is imagined and built based on us. That is, thanks to that absence the differences
are projected for thinking about national culture.
Then, the pairing with the demonization of the other is evident. Its invention is the
result of official interpretation: the delimitation and limitation of its disturbances;
a depository of “social faults”.
This emanates from a binary or dichotomous modernity and structuralism from
which the negative component was denominated and invented in different modes,
among them: the marginal, the indigent, the crazy, the deficient, the drug addict,
the homosexual, and the foreigner.
The foregoing was useful in justifying “who we are”, in order to justify the laws, the
institutions, “our rules”, ethics, the moral discourse and practice; it was to name
the “barbarity”, the “heresy”, the begging, so that we ourselves are not the same
“barbarians”, “heretics” and “beggars”. In this same binarism, the crazy person
confirms “the reason”; the child serves to explain “maturity”; the savage helps to
conceive “our civilisation”; the margined, “our social integration”; the deficient,
“our normality” and the foreigner would serve in that logic to define “our country”.
3. CHILEAN MILITARY MYTHOLOGY
Chilean military discourse makes a series of processes considered as historical
to be sacred, but that in the end have constituted a series of images based on
mythologies. A sample of that is the publication of the Historia del Ejército de Chile
1603-1952 (History of the Chilean Army 1603-1952), published in nine volumes
between 1980 and 1985 under orders from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet
(1973-1990).
In this story that officialises and monopolises the military history of Chile,
metaphors and symbols are established that seek to visualise and organise
the set of relationships with the others through a rhetoric that attempts to be
emotionally and rationally convincing in the name of a supposed historical
tradition. In that context, the conception of history with an engine prevails, and
that engine would be the Chilean pale race, a biological myth that refers to the
supposed mix among Mapuche, conquistadores and colonists granted control
of the land and Indians to work for them, a mixture that as a result of the war
would give rise to the spirit of race, the military virtue: union, solidarity, order,
42

discipline; to the nation8.
Under this reasoning, Indians would be extinct due to the effects of hunger, the
war, epidemics and the work. The Chilean pueblo had the “luck” of being colonised
by the Spaniards, giving rise to the “mixture” that was the reason for the “virility”,
“leadership”, “energy” and “superiority” of Chileans (Vidal, 1989).
This narration places the creation of the Chilean Army during the time of the
Spanish colony, an institutionalisation that would be simultaneous with the
creation of the “Chilean race”, along with the height of the large colonial estates
and the expansion of Catholicism. This simultaneous formation exceeds in time
the age of the Chilean State and for that reason is self-justified as an institution
that must watch over the health of its child: the State. This would explain the wars
and the dozens of interventions against the workers and politicians who “were
destabilising the nation” (Vidal, 1989).
This type of accounts provides a glimpse of the tendency of history as a divine
revelation, hidden in its own events and processes. But it is nothing more than a
historiography based on racism, positivism and Catholic and nineteenth-century
traditionalism.
4. THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC AND THE RACIALISATION OF OTHERNESS
The national army, intervened and financed by English and Chilean saltpetre
businessmen, had to face a war and the construction of a rhetoric based on
subjective perceptions was useful, constituting actual cultural artefacts that sought
to destroy the other – Peruvians and Bolivians, in their morality. These artefacts
were useful in granting a patriotic sense to a war that in practice was improper. The
de-legitimisation of the other, from a racial standpoint, was the principal artifice.
The following are some of the effects of those artefacts:
“To arms! Brave Chileans/noble lineage of a virile race” (song by Carlos Walker,
Imprenta Porvenir, Valparaíso 1879).
“The virile pueblos are not conquered” (Newspaper El Pueblo Chileno, Antofagasta,
3 April 1879).
“The sybarites of Rímac (…) will mobilise the hordes of bloodthirsty Indians from
the Andean region and of half-breeds (…) who will go to war as slaves and we

8

For a further analysis, see: Vidal, H. (1989). Mitología militar chilena: Surrealismo desde el superego
(Chilean military mythology: Surrealism from the superego), Minneapolis, MN: Institute for the Study
of Ideologies and Literature.

43

with our chests raised” (Newspaper El Pueblo Chileno, Antofagasta, 3 April 1879).
“The Peruvians are the eunuchs and frauds of America; the Chileans inflame the
burning heart of Rengo and Tucapel (…) our race is that of the brave” (Newspaper
La Verdad, Valdivia, 27 April 1879).
“The Chilean soldiers have Spanish fiery blood in their veins, mixed with the lava
from the volcanos of Arauco or in other terms the blood of Pelayo with that of
Caupolicán and Lautaro”.
“The sharp Spanish swords were forged in the granite chest of the sons of Chile,
and are sharpened more in the silky flesh of the Peruvian half-breeds” (Eugenio
González Bustamante, 1879: inauguration of the Patriotic Club).
“Degenerate descendants of the Incas receive the punishment they deserve for
their cowardly treachery” (Eugenio González, 1879: inauguration of the Patriotic
Club).
“It will be made understood that descendants of a race of titans (…) its sons,
brave among the brave, run frenetically in ardent patriotism to the sonorous and
revengeful echo of the war bugle calling them to the field of battle to avenge
with their blood and their valour the disgusting and unmentionable treachery of
that pueblo that, more than a disgusting and unmentionable treachery of that
pueblo that instead of being a nation moderately civilised is a repugnant brothel
of corruption and hijacking” (Newspaper La Esmeralda, city of Coronel, 6 August
1879).
“The indigenous wretch that is the base of the allied army doesn’t know patria
more than by name, nor knows more than the sombre and odious aspects of
civilised life (…) Chilean soldiers are no more than ‘Chilean rotos’ with a military
uniform, hence our eternal hero and our supreme commander” (Revista del Sur,
18 October 1879).
In these artefacts, the idea of the “civilised” and not indigenous that Chile would
supposedly have is evident. The indigenisation of the other, of the Peruvians and
Bolivians, was vital for filling the ranks and giving an epic, nationalist and moral
sense to an economic war.
Another artefact useful for the war was the invention of a national prototype: the
Chilean Roto.
The Roto alludes to a conceptualisation of the great Chilean popular mass that
only starting in the XIS century gained visibility in a scenario of aristocratic
Castilian-Basque hegemony that had deprived the pueblo of any social
44

prominence. The use of that representation had its background in Chile’s war
against the Peru-Bolivian Confederation (1836-1839): at that time the troops were
also made up of improvised soldiers coming from the lower pueblo.
The vindication of the Roto is expressed in the following examples:
“If the Chilean rotos, race of giants, titans, and of heroes so apt at handling the
plough, the crowbar and the sledge hammer as the rifle, the cannon and the
machine gun” (Revista del Sur, 18 October 1879).
“When the roto asks why the war, the boss answers: ‘because that demoralized
nation, because that government without a conscience has affronted Chile, because
they are envious, because that government forges the ruins of our homeland in the
shadows’- ‘well, we will go to war with them then boss” (Newspaper La Acción,
Vallenar, 20 December 1879).
“We don’t know what kind of opinion the half-breeds and foreigners have there
(…) it’s to be presumed that the former have been classified among the macaques
and the rest in the species of jaguars, of mountain cats” (Newspaper El Mercurio
de Valparaíso, 29 October 1879).
“The homogeneity of race, in first place, makes the Chileans an eminently fraternal
pueblo (…) here we don’t have the rivalries between mixed races, mountain people,
foreigners, blacks and half-breeds; here the whole population is good-looking, with
hair-free forehead, elevated, frugal and enterprising… marvellous homogeneity”
(Newspaper El Pueblo Chileno de Antofagasta, 9 November 1879).
“I am Chilean, strong, robust and healthy, like an Araucanian and slim, tall, agile
and beautiful like a Spaniard” (Newspaper El Correo de Quillota, 22 August 1880).
“The difference between races, referring particularly to Peru. One is heterogeneous,
ignorant, lazy and cowardly. The other, homogenous, intelligent, hard-working
and brave” (Newspaper El Veintiuno de Mayo, 23 January 1881).
This type of rhetoric was read in Peru and Bolivia based on the bestiality and
barbarity of the Roto. On their part, Chileans emitted these rhetorical artefacts
from a society that exhibited a supposed “agency of progress”, from discipline
and a sense of homeland. Nevertheless, the ground that attempted to sustain
this poetic of war was Darwinism, the Spencerian organicism, positivism, the idea
of “Nation”, the scientific racism and the opposition between crossbreeding and
purism of race.
So it is not a coincidence that the most successful books in the first half of the XX
century conceive this rhetoric and consecrate the Chilean Roto. Among the most
45

disseminated authors were: Francisco Encina, who published Historia de Chile
(History of Chile) (1940-1952); Nicolรกs Palacios with his book Raza Chilena (Chilean
Race) (1904); Roberto Hernรกndez with the work El Roto Chileno (The Chilean Roto)
(1929); Luis Durand and his book Presencia de Chile (Presence of Chile) (1942); and
finally Oreste Plath with the book Epopeya del Roto Chileno (Epic of the Chilean
Roto) (1957)9.
5. BIOPOLITICS OF THE BORDER
The result of the war gave rise to a process of colonisation by Chile toward the
territories incorporated, a process that is known in historiography as Chileanisation.
This process involved various focuses. The first refers to the new role that public
schools would have: new teachers arrive, the teaching of a new history arises, new
geography, new songs, the militarisation and Prussionisation through the act on
Mondays, the war bands, the raising of the flag, etc.
Also, the militarisation of the border gave rise to customs control of the movement
of the inhabitants.
Another abrupt change suffered by the pueblos that were incorporated into Chile
was regarding the names of the streets; all in remembrance of the war and its
heroes, usually accompanied by busts and monuments that reminded them of the
belligerence.
Also, many of the cities that had pre-Hispanic or colonial backgrounds or that were
the result of the Bolivian or Peruvian imprint were re-founded: Arica celebrates
the anniversary of its foundation on the 7th of June 1880; Iquique celebrates the
establishment of the first municipality (1879) in November, which along with the
21st of May gives the impression that it has two anniversaries; Calama celebrates
its anniversary on the 23rd of March, a day on which Bolivia, in 1879 lost its access
to the sea; Antofagasta celebrates the 14th of February 1879, the day the troops
disembarked; Mejillones celebrates the 8th of October, the day of the combat of
Angamos (1879)10.
This whole process is in addition to the Catholicization of the pueblos of the

9

The Roto as a representation of Chilean identity bothered the upper class, and for that reason a
successful caricature that renovated this image was Verdejo (1931), a caricature disseminated by
the magazine Sucesos. Condorito (1949) picked up that mischievousness through an anthropomorphous
condor, so that finally the figure of the huaso (peasant) became a transversal and national image
that would reflect Chilean identity.
10
Of the cities incorporated into Chile, only one kept its original foundation date: Tocopilla, a city that
celebrates the 29th of September 1843.

46

foothills of the Andes Mountains, with the priests truly being soldiers; and the
hegemony that the former Virgin of the Tirana acquired, who after the War of the
Pacific became mentioned as the Virgin of Carmen, the Patron Saint of the Chilean
Army. In addition to establishing just one date of celebration, the 16th of July, the
clothing was modified, installing a Chilean three-colour band, like the presidents
of the Republic use.
Paradoxically, in this process of nationalising the territories, a denationalisation
process started to take place, exercised by foreign economic groups that were
linked to European immigration processes. On one hand there was xenophobia, a
repulsion toward foreigners, particularly toward what was “Peruvian” or “Bolivian”,
and at the same time a process of filoxenia began; that is, a love of foreigners, even
more so if they were white, blond and enterprising.
It is enough to look at who would be the owners of the saltpetre works in the
post-war period and we see that the English and German interests predominated.
This scenario gave rise to an attraction, a centripetal scene for other groups:
Yugoslavians, French, Germans, Italians, Spaniards and Greeks started arriving.
These groups were able to participate strongly in the economic dynamics of
the new northern Chile, becoming an elite group, building itself into an enclave
economy, centred on extraction and on mercantile capitalism. These groups had
all the facilities to progress, which was not the case for the Chinese, for example,
who were the others in this process: they were the yellow people. Nevertheless, as
a result of their entrepreneurship, there were able to become a powerful, united
group with a high level of economic influence11.
This development, marked by the dichotomy between xenophobia and Eurocentric
filoxenia, operates between “whites” and “Indians”, between notions of civilisation
and barbarity.
6. OTHERNESS, MIGRATION AND HYGIENE: ORGANISATION OF THE DIFFERENCE
In the death rattles of the XX century, Chile showed intracontinental migratory
processes, witnessing Latin immigration in a context of neo-liberalization of the
economy.
This process has been marked by a renewal of xenophobia, but this time looking
from the cleansing of the space and the street, such as occurred in Santiago, Arica,
Tocopilla or Iquique.
In the referenced cities, modes of incorporating the migrant population have
arisen through ethnic economies, resulting in the occupation of public spaces. This
gave rise to a certain imagery of “Peruvians” and what would also be of “Bolivians”,

especially ethnic economies characterised by street trade, restaurants, the sale of
food in promenades and other jobs considered informal.
The xenophobia and repulsion toward Bolivian and Peruvian immigrants is
articulated based on the supposed sanitary prejudice toward these practices, So
healthiness and hygiene arose as a persuasive device that served to organise the
difference between populations as an indicator of them; hygiene as a stigmatising
agent of spaces and occupying groups.
This situation brings us the poor memories of the colonial relations that were
established in the cities of Asia and Africa, where various cities argued for the
configuration of apartheid based on hygiene.
What occurs in Chile has also derived in certain rhetoric of immigrants who selfcolonise and reproduce the differentiating discourses, assuming the stigmatising
discourses on the part of Chileans as real. This is exemplified by the differences
that are pointed out and the hierarchy that is established internally in Peru and
Bolivia, exhibiting regionalisms of immigration and discussions of classes. Many
Peruvians discriminate among themselves, indicating whether they are of mixed
race, mountain people, coastal dwellers, charapos, or natives of Lima; and in the
case of Bolivians, whether they are people from the lowlands or Indians from the
high plains.
The occupation of public spaces gives rise to criminalisation, where the print
press is a good ally, reproducing certain “medical knowledge” and mixing it with
alarmism.
“The unauthorised cooking places that are installed each evening, preferably
starting at 10:00 pm on the Catedral street between Puente and Bandera, in
the Plaza de Armas sector of Santiago are short-lived. Mayor Pablo Zalaquett
announced that he will eradicate them, after having submitted them to a broad
police and sanitary inspection, for which he has already been in contact with the
Health Service and Carabineros (Chilean Police).” (Newspaper El Mercurio, 10
February 2009).
The uses of public spaces refer us to a process of centrality of immigration
in terms of spaces with large crowds, helped by people looking for work,
legalisation procedures, ethnic and cultural resources, social networking practices,
communication between fellow countrymen and communication with their families
in their home countries, in order to eat and have access to entertainment. In the
end it is a transnational social and political space, facilitating the concentration
of businesses, exercising strong and long-lasting networks, and processes for the
material reproduction of the culture.
7. VENTRILOQUIST NATIONALISM
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The stigmatisation toward the trend of immigration toward more dark-skinned
people refers us to the same expression of the military narrative, with this being
a violently powerful discourse that naturalises and normalises racist accounts.

Chilean militarism constructs a dialectic history; creates a symbolic language that
is a prison, imprisoned by archaic categories and conceptual regressions. Because
of this, it has a cadaverous dimension. This same account expands in schools, on
television, in politicians, in the media, etc.
The official history of Chile is a mythological history, a monologue; it has no
dynamic and is pointed out as a sacred history that does not include the others. It
is a monument of ethnocentrism and nationalism that is exercised with persuasion,
coercion and force.
In reproducing those discourses, the public schools and the national population
become ventriloquists, because they are speaking for the other: it is the militarism
that is actually parleying.
8. RACISM AS A CAPITALIST PLOT
We must also situate racism as a phenomenon rooted in the economic structure
and in the statutory ordering of the capitalist society. The concept of “race” is a
construction useful for labour exploitation since it organises the divisions between
the servile work and the non-servile work and between the exploitable labour
force and the “surplus”.
The economic structure produces racially specific forms that are poorly distributed
49

but essential for its objectives. Immigrants are racialized and they are the ones
who carry out the precarious jobs; at the same time their colour and origin will
continue to be stigmatised as a rejected body that “serves” for “services” work.
In this process, we must add the inscription of bodies from an anatomy that
demarcates the politics, an anatomical politic with the body being a text that at
times is a “suspect”. The body speaks of a closed interpretation, based on colour,
odour, attitude, the way of speaking, walking, looking, and dressing. The body
becomes a set of information, of indications; of signs without being aware of what
it is providing, but that organise and implement a racial and labour order.
9. FINAL COMMENTS
In the Third Contemporary Art Week, SACO3, to a large extent, the reflections
expressed through the artistic installations, theatre and conferences of curators
and researchers, converged in the need for a new treatment, on the need to
overcome the meta relations and vindicate the subject in terms of the biography
that crosses over the social fields of northern Chile, southern Peru and western
Bolivia.
Also, it was necessary to criticise the politicians who hyperbolise the border
problems along with the media: the fictitious and exaggerations are constituted as
a reality, resulting in the hegemony of demonising the other.
A revision of historical accounts and the valuation of cultural archives were
proposed: archives that are the depositories of the drafts driven by late-night
nationalism and the otherness of the modern and dichotomous world, with the
schools being in charge of reproducing complex recitations of xenophobia and
symbolic violence.
In the same way, the prejudices, stereotypes and imaginations of the other result
in corporality that is stressed in terms of the customisation that involves the other
and his body as a threat and suspicion in anthropologically dense places older than
the borderline that marks the States. There are the bodies that move about like
victims of the tri-national border bio-politics.
In that scene of closure and border vigilance, as a legacy and validation of a war
of mining capitalism, the subject lives in cartographic tension. So they survive the
porosities of the border expressed in the capacity of agency of the subjects that
move about, migrate, trade, live together, love, and work in one same region in
common. This gives rise to dispersions and a contrast in the consideration of the
state logic on the part of the inhabitants who through their everyday practices
attempt to break the state paradigm.
50

The transhumance of consumption and work are evidence of these temporal or
seasonal reconstructions of the spaces themselves with memories of pre-Chilean,
pre-Peruvian and pre-Bolivian dynamics.
Nevertheless, the bodies in transit attempt to be nationalised in order to control
their movements, with the cataloguing and identification of nationality: Peruvian,
Bolivian or Chilean. Being “Peruvian”, “Chilean” or “Bolivian”, operates as if it
were a category that totalises the subject in a monadic manner, as a magic work
that voids him, as a erasure of his biography, singularity, name, desires, dreams,
projects, etc.
The tension between territory and territoriality become evident, understanding the
difference in direct relation with the State to which those places and those bodies
“belong”. Territoriality refers to the social subject and the diversity expressed
in his habits. In this tenor, the operational difference between territory and any
other geographic category – space, region or place would arise in considering the
perspective of the social subjects. The territory is not identified and delimited by
the outside observer but rather by the social groups that maintain relations of
production, of neighbourhood or kinship, and that as a strategy define a territory.
Territoriality is seen as a strategy of individuals or groups that somehow seek
to control, propose or influence; of phenomena and of relations that would be
derived from them in certain geographic areas.
Territoriality and its dynamics are forced when modifications are perceived on an
intermediate scale, by the local scales that leave behind the decisions made in the
respective centralities: Lima, La Paz and Santiago.
Regions are defined based on the cultural and material practices of the societies
themselves; regions and their dynamics must be thought of as entities with open
and contingent processes.
It is urgent to revalue the re-composition of neighbour relations, overcoming the
institutionalised vilifications, vindicate the dialogue of the subject faced with the
militarisms and chauvinisms with their infinite monologues of xenophobic violence.
Leave behind the cadaverous dimension of the historiographic nationalist language
and the colonial relations, appealing to the multiple voices of contemporaneity.
To conclude, our research detected certain lines of integration that would
consist of proposals for peace, among them: encourage ongoing cultural
exchange, scholarships for students in the three countries. Propitiate activities
and research in the bordering universities on the triple border, migration,
regional histories, original peoples, so that this way we can put the discussion
off centre. The relations between labour organisations and social movements
need to be tightened. Establish free movement in the zone, without passports for
51

Chileans, Peruvians and Bolivians. Improve the situation of Peruvian and Bolivian
immigrants. Set up special aid, training, education, health, and other programs for
them; the development of a great industrial and technological pole that combines
the agro industry of Tacna and the far southern part of Peru, the Bolivian water
and gas, and the natural, technical and technological resources of Chile.
Also, on a symbolic level, propose changes in the names of the streets, without any
more militarism. Rethink the anniversaries of separation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no more war holidays.
Establish a Tri-national Day of Peace. Make our schools a scenario of integration,
rethink the War Bands and their usefulness; rethink the parades. Rethink the Cueca,
the Copihue and the Huaso in the north and include regional manifestations. Chile
must return the HuĂĄscar, put an end to customs violence: training for peace, but
without stigmas; make the treaties tangible, amend the topics of the Lauca and
Silala Rivers and definitively resolve the issue of Boliviaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landlocked status.
Damir Galaz-Mandakovic
Researcher / Chile

52

53

54

OTHERNESS REVEALED

Post-curatorial reflections

55

56

FIVE INTERVENTIONS AND A TOUR: THE OTHER LANDSCAPE.
One of the inspiring focuses of the Collective group SE VENDE since its beginnings
in 2004 has been the idea of working on the territory, of making visible on a
local and global map this vast zone that runs beyond Antofagasta, covering the
Atacama Desert and converting it into a focus of attention for current artistic
practices. Among the variety of activities that SE VENDE has carried out, the 3rd
Contemporary Art Week, SACO3, is probably the event that has most effectively
achieved this.
Firstly, it was news, more fluidly in local media than national, but it clearly awoke
interest for its international character, the importance of the guests (curators,
researchers and artists from Peru, Bolivia and Chile), as well as the concept of
the call: the complex relationship among the three bordering countries. Also, the
actions promised a massive scope. Along with the presence of the experts who
participated in the speeches and a general forum, the work Partir (Depart) of a key
company in Antofagasta, La Huella Teatro, and –central– an exhibition: Mi vecino.
El Otro (My Neighbour. The Other) with the submissions by the curator teams
occupying the esplanade of the Huanchaca Cultural Park.
The exposition symbolically strengthened the basis for this meeting, activating at
the same time imagery and a tour of the site – the ruins of a silver foundry that
functioned under Bolivian, English and Chilean interests in the late XIX and early XX
centuries, currently a National Historical Monument. There were five interventions
in situ, including a mural with a selection of drawings by more than a hundred
children from the area who were invited to imagine “the others” in an art exercise,
Tres Pueblos (Three Pueblos) that involved educational establishments.
But more profoundly than the news coverage (which obviously serves to provide
visibility), the effectiveness was actually in the scopes of an encounter with the
nature of a residency, which allowed a certain deepening in the situation of place,
and a constant relationship among all the participants and collaborators of SE
VENDE as a group. During approximately a week, the twelve guests focused on the
realisation of their works and the preparation and participation in the activities
as well as tours of sites of cultural interest in the city, going out to eat, having
long conversations in some bar or late at night in the homes of the organisers,
plus a final session in Quillagua as part of the actions of El Lugar Más Seco del
Mundo (The Driest Place in the World). The everyday coexistence also involved at
all times young artists from Antofagasta, among other collaborators of the group
that worked in connection with the world of art and culture inside or outside the
region. I am among the latter.
57

SEA FOR BOLIVIA
The speeches and the general forum took on clarifying and dismantling the
structures and discourses that have given rise to the idea of “the other”, understood
as a people or nation, defined in terms of border and race. What better place than
Antofagasta, within Chile, to put “salt on the wound” and reflect on the processes
of immigration, which means addressing importantly the conflicts and tensions
that result when the entry of “the foreigner” takes on every sphere of daily life.
Sure, they are problems that affect the capital of the realm in some points, but
the short-sightedness of centralism is stronger and is not something that has been
taken on in political terms.
Antofagasta is growing. The mining boom has been an attraction for Chileans from
the southern part of the country as well as for Bolivians, Peruvians, Ecuadorians
and Colombians among others. During the last ten years, more and more buildings
have been rising, and more and more 4x4s are seen traveling in the streets. At
night the city doesn’t sleep. The variety of restaurants and nightclubs is perhaps
comparable to the touristic Valparaiso. And at the same time, “blackness” has
been establishing itself in barrios and on the hills, in neighbours’ homes, in jobs,
and in the aromas of food, in customs and in the voices that speak to us. We
know, however, that this situation is not new but rather is even in the origins of an
ancestrally populated territory and in the history of this northern city that today
is Chilean; a city where borders are stretched, diluted and reconstructed on every
corner.
While the most intensive days of SACO3 transpired, there was news that formed
an unexpected framework. The dispute between Peru and Chile was reopened,
this time over the “land triangle”, the area between Tacna and Arica that was
not defined after the latest referendum by The Hague on the maritime borders.
The media let the opinion of the inhabitants of that zone pass by perhaps less
noticeably, who declared that they feel historically passed over by the respective
governments that were once again publically confronted.
In SACO3, the curators (Gustavo Buntinx from Peru, Lucía Querejazu from
Bolivia and Rodolfo Andaur from Chile) had to invite researchers who offered
a view outside of art, but at the same time open to dialogue, to participate on
their teams. The anthropologists Harold Hernández from Peru and Juan Fabbri
from Bolivia, and the Chilean historian Damir Galaz-Mandakovic, who works in
Tocopilla arrived. The first two focused precisely on local and everyday situations,
on the imagery of the artists of Cusco, the first, and on the opinions of friends and
neighbours, the second, in order to define “the others” based on stereotypes more
than on actual links, they said, where Peruvians and Bolivians did not seem to be
perceived as enemies, but on the contrary, Chileans were, being characterised as
racist, aggressive and dominant.
58

The three researchers coincided in that the root cause of the conflicts that
have been defined until now as a sort of “racialization of relations”, as defined
by the Chilean historian, has been the War of the Pacific. The rhetoric has been
perpetuated by the power structures through a series of devices related to
education, politics and civic order, added Galaz-Mandakovic. We could say that on
one hand are the dominant discourses and structures and on the other, the reality
of close relationships, where the stereotypes are demolished. “Sea for Bolivia” was
an idea that was present, supported and accepted, but not discussed, since it was
considered a topic more relevant to the governments in power.
During the days of the residency it was curious to discover precisely how relations
flow with “the others” within the group, being defined not only by national orders
but also by the flows of power themselves in the sphere of art. Certain tensions
were perceived toward a work team or toward a curator who played with the
strength of his loquacity and position on the international scene, or among the
artists themselves and the expert who on occasion conceptually commandeered
the definition of the works and their staging. But the conviction that borders are
moveable and fragile prevailed, both if we talk about nations as well as the spaces
for circulation of the work and its meaning. And that especially in art there is
the faculty of revealing the fictions that dominate us, of trying to construct new
realities, or at least to pose the questions. The discussions within and outside the
group, toward the public pointed at that; at overcoming the differences in order to
construct a common territory.
How is such a utopic faculty exercised in the works on the esplanade of the
Huanchaca Cultural Park? Because we don’t forget that the focus of My neighbour.
The Other was an exposition, a tour of interventions made especially for the place
and that evidenced, both formally and symbolically, the work with the territory.

MYTHICAL - POLITICAL
The site of the ruins is a clearing where the old constructions of an industry that
failed seem like vestiges of some pre-Colombian temple or citadel, still sublime and
standing on the side of a hill that faces the sea. It would have panoramic grandeur
if it were not for the Enjoy casino that was built just in front. So the place turns out
to be the epitome of the desert or the high plains, a common territory of ancestral
cultures currently shared by three countries. Nothing there seems to flourish. The
borders, the constructions, the power systems disappear. Yesterday the guano,
silver, saltpetre. Today, copper, and in all epochs, but with other emphasis and
names, the power of large capital. And nevertheless, the clearing, the dust and the
sun – eternal nature. How can it be situated in that setting?
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Worked in situ, each one of the interventions was related to the place, achieving
meaning based on the territory, the history and that indescribable presence of
the desert. Created by artists who work in what is contemporary in Latin America,
with local themes and globalised languages, quite conceptual therefore, in this
close relationship with the context, they achieved a mystic sense, which originally
occurred in some experiences of land art in the 60â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 70â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. However, the
presence here was more subtle, more camouflaged and less monumental. The
works, for example, adopted the colour of the place.
At the entrance, the work by Jaime Achocalla (Bolivia). The artist used two posts,
attaching to one of them a stack of abodes fabricated on site, pasting on the mud
until it covered the support almost completely. Two days before the inauguration,
a fortuitous and nearly catastrophic event marked the work: the adobe tower
collapsed, emitting a sound that left the artists and assistants who were leaving
at the end of the day perplexed. An orgasmic explosion of the Pachamama
(Mother Earth) in an upright symbol of the homeland and its military emblems,
we would say paraphrasing Gustavo Buntinx and defining the phenomenon with
its aesthetic-eroticized rhetoric that here was more than precise. The feminine and
the masculine clearly; or the telluric and the patriarchal order. The adobe opening
up like a reclining body that returns to its origin and the pole, unharmed, like a
phallus directly to the sky.

Without a title / Jaime Achocalla (detail)

A little beyond Achocalla, the submission of the other Bolivian artist, AndrĂŠs
Bedoya: five strips of wood blackened by a work of burning, and over each
one of these elevated vertical plinths, a mirror fabricated with silver that was
a sculptural object (seams and unevenness of the clay mould were noticed) as
well as a reminiscence of colonial mirrors, truly looking somewhat wrinkled
and fractured. The author referred in this way to the mineral that enriched
Bolivia between the XIX and XX centuries, to the Huanchaca foundry, to the
abundance and its debacle. Those who sought to be reflected now were
Peruvians, Bolivians, Chileans and new immigrants, perhaps, among the
60

public. What prevailed at certain times or from certain positions, however, was the
reflection of the sun, luminous signals that bounced off the mirrors.

Without a title / AndrĂŠs Bedoya (detail)

Continuing this possible tour, Monumento a la Antofagasta Boliviana (Monument
to the Bolivian Antofagasta) by the Chilean Claudio Correa, is located walking
back toward the Cultural Park, past the museum and closer to the walls in ruin.
From afar it was a sail ship trying to advance in a sea of earth and stones that
seemed to be surrounded by the old turrets. The work referred to a Bolivian
ship named Antofagasta that was about to leave for the War of the Pacific, being
disarmed before by the Peruvian military. The mast was actually a flagpole and
the impossibility of navigating grew along with the experience of the wind among
the three flapping sails and at night was illuminated since it was made with a
phosphorescent material, rising out of the darkness like a ghost ship.

Monument to the Bolivian Antofagasta / Claudio Correa (fragment)

Also like Correa, the work of Catalina GonzĂĄlez (Chile) is based on work with the
archive, with more of a materiality being presented, where history was hidden or
rather was latent. In a corner, between the walls and a doorway, the artist installed
a water fountain made with a round metal platform. A British map was inscribed
on the bottom showing the old Bolivian territory and the current northern area
of Chile with the saltpetre deposits highlighted. Over the cartography and inside
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the water there were piles of sulphur. El Paisaje que nos une (The Landscape that
unites us) points out a territory demarcated by the dominant powers, with the
ornamental element in dialogue with the architecture changed to ruin, partly
telling its story, while from the tube in the centre, the water flowed as eternal.

The landscape that unites us / Catalina González (Fragment)

In an open sector of the esplanade, the Peruvian work Trinidad (Trinity) was a
team effort that abolished the authorships, bringing together both the curator
Gustavo Buntinx and the researcher Harold Hernández, as well as the artists Elliot
Túpac and César Cornejo. An obelisk that refers to the one on the Choquecota hill
on the border between Peru, Chile and Bolivia was dislocated in three parts and
seemed to rotate on itself. In the way that perhaps the Achocalla adobe tower
twisted, the white construction however remained erect, suggesting the heart of
an enormous three-headed llama drawn on the ground with pieces of shells and
saltpetre, as if it involved an enormous Nazca figure. The white outline was in the
form of a three-point animal with a spiral rising. Once again the feminine and the
masculine; the idea of time and fertility dialoguing with a phallic construction. The
work also opened itself to certain geopolitical relations, as explained by Buntinx,
which included the Enjoy casino and a small military chapel in the direction toward
the sea. And just like in the work of Catalina González, a type of sundial was also
articulated.

Without being jointly planned, the interventions turned out to have similarities.
They functioned like landmarks in the desert or epiphany encounters on the road.
In traveling on a pilgrimage they were brief sanctuaries that provided a place to
stop, a spectrum of the area. The idea of limit, of border was transformed by the
construction of these locations in dialogue with the ruins, the landscape and the
elements of nature: there was the land, the mineral, the geography, the light, the
sun, the water and the wind ending up activating the works. Poles, obelisks and
phallic constructions were found with the horizontalness of the land, a Pachamama that seemed to be intervened, open, trespassed, maintaining its apparently
peaceful sleep; notwithstanding, at any moment displaying its power.
Erected at the instant of fertility, the works were conceptually and symbolically
imagined based on a theme that seems to interest some artists currently and is the
relationship between art and nature. Whether understood in political or cultural
terms as landscape and territory, or as a possible representation of the ineffable,
of a self and external power. In its reencounter, art is imaginative regarding significant places in the context of globalisation, of the devastation that capital provokes,
precisely the loss of nature, of the landscape, of common territory, of memory
and identity; recovering in other cases a space of mystery and silence that were
thought to be lost. In SACO3, in the place where three countries come together,
a new possible landscape or territory was drawn, where the nexus was, from the
contemporary and ancestral, with the others but also with â&#x20AC;&#x153;the otherâ&#x20AC;?.
Carolina Lara B.
Journalist Specialising in Art

63

I AM THE LLAMA: THREE TRINITARY NOTES ON TRINITY.
1. HUK / MAYA / UNO
Enriched by the settling and inertia of its previous courses, the third edition of
the Contemporary Art Week of Antofagasta (SACO3) offers complexities and new
challenges. Radically urgent: rethink the broad history, shared but fractured, of
our three peoples is one of the most pertinent incitements for critical imagination
at crucial times, where our limits are once again questioned and modified or
reaffirmed. But for art at least, perhaps the idea itself of limit is what must be
placed in crisis, in particular where the political borders do not coincide with the
cultural borders, such as in the so-called “three-part border” between Chile, Peru
and Bolivia.
Based on that intuition, our project for SACO3 procures to do justice to the
challenges of a call, the slogan and title of which insinuate what constitutes our
otherness: My neighbour. The Other. So we articulate in a single work the joint
efforts of intellectual and artistic creators committed to the experience of limiting
and with the transfigured validity of the ancestral that precedes and surpasses any
identity, any modern identification.
Through an intense praxis of continual exchanges, the individual authorships were
being diluted, merging the artistic and conceptual contributions from both the
artists and the researchers1. Under the poly-semantic name Trinidad, the result
dislocates an official emblem of limit between three countries, three communities,
artificially segregated, an empty symbol that we twist to formulate a vital and
new symbology. An ucranic, past and future allegory that transcends the political
fractures of our geographies and cultures, that despite everything are always
shared.
The central sculptural presence cites the obelisk that is placed as a border
demarcation among the three states at the top of the Choquecota hill, nearly five
thousand meters above sea level. A monument, in reality, but with a practical
functionality that resolves on three fronts the quadrangular form traditionally
associated with those stony phalluses that originated in the Egypt of the pharaohs
and then moved to certain esoteric imageries of universal power.
Our reinterpretation of the landmark attempts to return to this primordial sense,
preserving, but in an altered manner, its geometric simplification. In Trinidad

1

The Peruvian work group originally recognized the differentiated work of two artists (César Cornejo
and Elliot “Túpac” Urcuhuaranga), a researcher (Harold Hernández Lefranc) and a curator (Gustavo
Buntinx). But these distinctions were quickly blurred, as was said.

64

the apparent fusion of the elements that constitute the conventional model is
deconstructed by the different rotation of each one of its three principal parts and
of the base that sustains them, until forming a prism thrown out of joint in unequal
bodies. An undermining, literally an unhinging of the established discourses of
rhetorical unity.
The emptiness of those accounts ends up distancing us as peoples by not
recognizing the differences and conflicts that nevertheless integrated us in one
same history. Against that mystification the image posed here is unsettling due to
the apparent instability that de-structures its five and a half meters of height. It is a
precarious form that evidences and makes the still unresolved and always mutable
relationship between our societies problematic and productive. But it does so
without explicit allusions, like the names of the countries and the republican crests
clumsily painted on the three sides with respect to the official boundary marker.
Against that literal designation of space, the apparent breakdowns of our absolute
blank abstraction are erected, posing a greater symbology in the nearly minimalist
purity of its shapes.
Perhaps mystical: There is also a spiritual beauty that configures the changing trim
of the clean triangular shadows projected by the highlights of each superior body
over the inferior body that supports it. And for a perpendicular and aerial view –
the gaze of God, the drawing thus achieved insinuates that of the Wind Rose.
In complementary opposition to that presence, and even to its erect verticality, a
radically horizontal intervention is conceived on the earthy ground that surrounds
it. In the manner of the lines of Nazca, fifteen metres from the round of the obelisk
a large profile of an Andean llama is configured, from whose unique body three
heads unusually emerge; a representation of clear ancestral connotations that
nevertheless acknowledges the differentiated prolongations of our identities,
multiple but shared. And at the same time it alludes to the mythical jarjachas
(demons of incest) with which this type of images with the prohibited practices of
incest are associated in the Andes.
All this is without omitting a certain relation with the impressive tri-facial or
three-front representatives of the Sacred Trinity, that theological sublimation of
otherness. Divine and human. An eccentric iconography the European proscription
of which did not impede it from reaching a revealing survival in the American
colonies of Spain2.
The design of the work places the obelisk in the upper trunk, in the heart of

2

In this regard, see my texts in “Tr3s al cubo: trinidades apócrifas” (Thr3s to the cube: apocryphal
trinities). In: http://www.micromuseo.org.pe/rutas/trinidad/index.html.

65

this protean llama, such that the angle of the sculptural base coincides with that of
the lineal opening of its three large necks. Both forms, the graphic and volumetric,
are thus seen as organically integrated, even by the white colour that joins them.
A morphologic articulation that is strengthened by the astronomical positions of
the resulting composition: the shadow caused by the morning light coincides with
the heads and at sunset should signal the ventral plexus of the mythic animal, in
the manner of a sundial the luminous print of which as it moves, eroticises the
joint rooting of the three identities. A cosmic libido reinforced by the surrounding
movement of the other line that spirals from the phallic element that gives rise to
the outline of the llama and then changes its size in its revolutions.
This three-front figure could thus be seen as the platonic shadow of the Trinitarian
(not tripartite) obelisk. The projection of the ghost. The shared and denied origin
of our three peoples. The latency of that Cusco, of that qosqo, of that umbilicus3.
2. PAYA / DOS / ISKAY
Of that vortex. The initial approach of our project, conceived from a distance,
was at the same time subverted and strengthened by the direct experience of
the space destined for its placement: the impressive structural foundations of
the Huanchaca metallurgical plant, constructed on elevations facing the sea for
better exportation of its products, but dismantled just ten years later in 1903, after
the articulation foreseen with the silver-bearing production from Bolivia proved
unviable.
An economic breakdown in which so many others have historically plunged, as we
can confirm from the start of our actual intervention in the site.
In breathing, for example, the aura from which those industrial remnants evoke or
even become pre-Hispanic ruins, such as, in fact, procuring to accent the design
that gives graphic identity to the cultural part constituted around the monument.
Or in discovering dispersed among the rubble, rusted ironwork that we now
suggest to be loaded with other connotations, such as disfigured bayonets.
And in perceiving the crucial relationship of the monument with a setting that would
provide our intervention with even more complex senses. Radically historical: the
exact mismatch of the coronation of our obelisk ended up pointing toward the far

3

According to the mestizo chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, the name of the Incan capital would
derive from the word assigned to the umbilical in a “particular” language – secret and divine,
used exclusively by the nobles of Tawantinsuyo. It could involve the now extinct Puquina language,
but as it refers to that place name it would be more of a mystification, probably derived from the
book Utopia by Tomás Moro. As it were, such eruditions escape the current generalised
identification of Cusco with that suggestive umbilical zone, erogenous and primitive.

66

El Museo de Arte Borrado Borrado (The Museum of Erased Art) / Emilio Hernandéz Saavedra
(1970), Offset on paper (image exists only in the catalogue of the artist’s exposition in the
Cultura y Libertad (Culture and Freedom) gallery).

peninsula on the hidden side of which is Punta Angamos, the scene of the naval
combat that defined the War of the Pacific between our three homelands. An
imaginary line, which five hundred meters from Huanchaca, first crosses the
military church built on its shores, in the old machine room that processed the
seawater for the foundry. On its main altar, the Virgin of Carmen, Queen and
Patron Saint of Chile, its Armed Forces and Carabineros (Police Force) is enthroned
in a privileged position. But a modest outside chapel brings together and shelters
the images, poor, small and deteriorated, of the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe
and of the Peruvian Saint Martín of Porres, the highest Catholic symbols of the
American reconciliation.
Chance does not exist. Twice over, or three times over: The daily discovery of
those sacred signals was added to during our late-night work by witnessing with
surprise the collapse of the rustic adobe with which a high-level Peruvian artist had
skilfully wrapped the metallic pole intended for the official flags at the entrance to
the ruins. Like a lyrical, telluric orgasm that came undone and overflowed on the
phallic yearning of epic. And of war4.
It was precisely during those sessions that the press was stirred by a stupid
international dispute over the sovereignty attributed to a minimal portion of the
border territory between Chile and Peru – a tiny extension (3.7 hectares), even
less than that occupied by the ruins of Huanchaca. A ridiculous pretext that
nevertheless motivated impressive rhetorical displays. From a certain diplomatic
poetry (“terrestrial triangle”, “dry beach”…), to harsh xenophobic remarks and
war-like incitation.
Only the erotic deliriums of art can be displayed against the lethal madness of low
politics. Overcoming based on imagery the habits so typical of us of ploughing
in the sea and crying in the desert. Reversing the fantasies and the fratricide
resentments of nationalism (without a nation that fully supports them). Opposing,
in the end, the geotopias to the sadly remembered American geopolitics (the
famous book plagiarised by the dictator Augusto José Pinochet Ugarte5)
Based on that other libido, the unending border dispute that also, painfully, involves
Bolivia, is resolved not in the courts or on the fields of battle, but in the exchange of
fluids that will someday merge our fragmented existences in just one libinal economy.
An extreme free trade treaty. And metaphysical: beyond any limitation of terrain.

Or maritime: In a strategic decision, the lines with which we gave shape to the
image of the ancestral llama were traced not with dye or chalk, but with an infinite
range of formidable whites provided by the shells that accumulate along the coast.
An organic evocation of the molluscs and fish that provided sustenance to the
original communities for millennia. But also the invocation of essential forces that
restored the lost primordial order. An alchemy activated by the mixture of the
materials used in art through the infiltration throughout the design of fragments of
saltpetre, equally white. A mineral insertion that is also historical: the War of the
Pacific was also called the Saltpetre War.
Martial capitalisms that the post-industrial society replaced with hedonistic
capitalism: Enjoy is the demonstrative name of the sad complex of entertainment
– hotel, bar, pool, restaurant, casino, absurdly built in front of Huanchaca so that
it deliberately interrupts the mythical and historical relationship of those ruins
with the sea and that gives them meaning, with the unexpected consequence of
also interrupting the solar radiation necessary for the effect of ventral, and sexual
shadow postulated by our obelisk in the final moments of sundown.
But this factual frustration offered our work its utopic culmination. Telluric:
everything in it turns into a totemic invocation, and catastrophic in a controlled
manner. The ritual propitiation of a surgical tsunami, of a great wave that enters
the bay through the diagonal of the church, reverently caresses the cliff of the
ruins and as it returns to the ocean the compulsive gambling architecture that
hides the history and saddens the cosmos disappears.
A political-conceptual re-naturalisation of the landscape. As in the final photograph
that we intercede now to graph those wet dreams. Very much like that Museum of
erased Art with which in 1970 Emilio Hernández Saavedra prefigured as a trim in
white the mental space for all the runaway fantasies in Peru for our great lack of a
museum6. Other pulsations.

6

Regarding this seminal work by Hernández Saavedra, see:
http://www.micromuseo.org.pe/rutas/vacio-museal/sinopsis.html. There you can also find references
to the category of lack of museum that I have been developing since the 1980’s.

70

3. TRES / KINSA / KIMSA
In appearance, none of that has occurred (yet). Perhaps we made a mistake in the
exact proportions of saltpetre that in catalysing the shell would set off the desired
cataclysm. But that cosmic desire is inscribed in the images and in the imagery.
That track of invisible energies. From the parallel lines that we added outside the
set in order to indicate to the waters the course of their redemptive overflowing
toward the obelisk. Up to the double directionality of our hybrid design: while the
obelisk launches its vectorial view toward the church and from there to the hidden
presence of Angamos, the three-front heads of the mythical animal point at the
spilled high plains mud. And from there to the sun covered by the horizon that the
megalomaniac casino denies.
Everything of our culture and nature that is denied, exhumed from the vortex
of Huanchaca. In Antofagasta. Which is the desert of Chile. Which was Bolivia’s
sea. Which was Peru’s soil. Which will be everyone’s heaven when mythically our
bumpy western histories are reversed.
And the astral times are inverted: such as in the digital pachakuti, the technological
71

72

“turning round of the world” achieved by Dagmara Wyskiel in the video Quillagua
Dream, through the minimal and monumental resource of turning 180˚ the camera
that covers the bleak plateaus of the “driest place in the world”, the current space
of all desires.
Wet dreams, again. Like the hallucinated re-ethnicisation of that dying pueblo
of the desert of Antofagasta, that now practices the learning of dances and
native languages and rites as a pragmatic strategy of political resistance. (Post)
modern. The archaic and that to come. With the disjointing punctum of the list
that accompanies the final credits of the video with the complete last names of
the hundreds of neo-Aymaras of de Quillagua. Of last names almost always purebloods, Castilians and Spaniards.
We live from contradiction. And based on that we sing. Another otherness.
“I am the llama”, exclaimed César Vallejo in his transcultural, transgender, transorganic poetry.
The biggest art of diplomacy is defining and drawing borders. But the biggest art
of art itself is erasing them7.
Kacharpaya / Coda / Kacharpaya:
Attention to the posthumous life of the images. As a direct consequence of
this project, the technical file is already being prepared that will be presented
simultaneously to the chanceries of Bolivia, and Peru: the formal proposal for
replacing the subdued obelisk of the three-part border in Choquecota with the
Trinitarian lit-up version the archetype (not prototype) of which we erected in
Huanchaca.
It will be important to vindicate the bureaucratic vicissitudes of each differentiated
procedure as art. From the respective entries into the tables of the parties to the
inevitable negatives. Or, even more poetic – and political, until the final darkening
of our actions in the administrative silence.
That of the history that is hushed when faced with the myth.
7

This phrase accompanies and inspired the exposition Lo impuro y lo contaminado III: pulsiones (neo)
barrocas en las rutas de Micromuseo (The impure and the contaminated III: (neo) baroque impulses
on the routes of Micro museum) that I curated in 2009 for the Triennial of Chile, occupying all the
rooms of the Contemporary Art Museum (Parque Forestal) in Santiago. See:
http://www micromuseo.org.pe/rutas/micromuseotrienal/index.html.
In a sub link on that page you can find another of our works intimately associated with that reflected
on here: http://www.micromuseo.org.pe/rutas/micromuseotrienal/ofrenda.html.

73

(In midday of the inauguration of SACO3, a mysterious ship, without visible
insignias, navigated between Punta Angamos and the beaches dominated by
the Enjoy casino of Antofagasta. It was the Huรกscar, said the Peruvians, freed at
last from its historical moorings to navigate free through the waters of art that
will redeem us from the tragic hatred of the past. And from the empty joys of the
present).
(Fin / Tukuky / Tuku)

Gustavo Buntinx
Curator / Peru

74

THE LAND DOES NOT BELONG TO US.
CURATORIAL SUBMISSION
Borders have very diverse forms of being and existing. Border is the delimitation of
space, of state of mind as well as between health and sickness. The borders that
divide us as neighbours are composed of many elements more than some lines
drawn on maps, and that apart from that require an abstraction that does not
coincide with the creation of borders between humans. The maps on which we
walk, on their part, are actually those that we choose (voluntarily or by necessity),
that are made up by our rounds and our spaces. Our walking draws our maps; our
spatial references determine the landmarks of our nations. A type of resistance is
thereby generated to yield to a territorial flow and a political and administrative
division, causing a territorial logic much older than the Republics and even than
the colonial state to prevail.
The existence of the other is as essential for a person as the awareness of the
uniqueness of his identity. It is in the formation of the border between me
and the other where identity arises, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes by
confrontation, but always by opposition. This latter can be partial or lateral, or
radical and diametrical, generating in addition to clear identity traits, attitudes
of rejection that are manifested in a type of survival instinct. In the case of
neighbourhoods with more than one other, it is also natural that a person is in a
place diametrically opposed to a neighbour, he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the same relationship
with the second, the third, and so on successively. A neighbour who is radically
opposed in terms of otherness can threaten the integrity of one but not all at
the same time, not constantly. Neighbourhood relations can only be successful to
the extent that these threats are kept in the framework of an internal definition
of identity/otherness and that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come to generate actual threats to its
existence, since then the other neighbour is converted directly into an enemy.
Having a three-part border in a place that has been determined by a military
conflict between one of the neighbours against the other two evidences how
mobile and diverse the limit can be that demarcate a State, which by definition
will seek to generate an identity. In fact, the borders that divide the three States
do not necessarily divide the three nations, and the incessant mobility of people
through the borders causes the concept of a political border to be questioned
and replaced by a mobile human border, less clear and even blurry. For that, the
most appropriate submission to consider, giving preference to the human over
the political element would be to see how those borders are conformed, who
moves them and why, to what historical contingency factors they respond and
what impact they have on the constant construction of memory and national or
regional identity.
75

Among the political-administrative borders that define what Bolivia is today, there
are thirty six ethnic groups and a growing mixed-race population that does not
identify with any of these indigenous groups. Additionally, there are colonies
of migrants; the biggest are those of the Japanese and Mennonites, and there
is also a very significant German-speaking colony. Bolivia contains within it more
otherness and borders than it has among its political borders. The violence and the
discrimination that are exercised toward within from the groups of power, generally
by the Aymara-Quechua majority toward the other historically discriminated
groups is a problem that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be seen and is conveniently hidden
behind the conceptualisation, by the way sophisticated, of a State consisting of
several nationalities.
This constant conflict, which in the future will undoubtedly relaunch with greater
strength and complexity than it has today, necessarily needs an other that
counterpoises it and surpasses it in relevant importance. That, in Bolivia, is Chile.
As a policy of national unification and following a public school education,
president Evo Morales has destined a large part of his time and the national budget
(monetary and emotional) to once again go to battle to defend Boliviaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right to the
sea. With that it is sought not necessarily to gain the sea, which the majority of the
population considers rationally possible, but to establish a hard-line international
policy with that neighbour that at one time, at the pleasure and will of imperial
liberalism, advanced on the Bolivians and their poverty-stricken republican State,
leaving them without sovereign access to the sea.
Since this involves a serious and firm policy against the abuses committed by the
Chilean business community and backed by a government that with its silence
grants its consent to these actions, the entire discourse would be better directed
at the diversion of the Lauca and Silala rivers. However, the sense is another, it is
interest above all. The interest is to generate unity around a personal leadership
faced with the eternally invader neighbour and not precisely to vindicate the illicit
use of resources that desertified the entire region to the detriment of the cattle
raising populations of the high altitudes. It is this political process that is prioritised
and through a legal juncture, the real relationship of otherness, which is human,
is clouded.
In all this it is important to clearly establish that between Peru and Bolivia, from
the Bolivian standpoint, there is no conflictive border other than the Amazonian
border in northern Bolivia, where drug traffic takes advantage of the absence of
Bolivian authorities and is governed by all the authority possible that Peru deploys in the region, to try to control the indiscriminate cultivation of coca leaves
and the flow of violence that the traffic of freebase cocaine involves. Beyond
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that, the Taypi1 Titicaca-Desaguadero aquifer integrates in a parallel manner the
border that divides it. They are not the same one but they do share the same mental and mythological structures; therefore the Peruvian (Andean) is like a partially
modified Bolivian extension. But even more, what probably unites us more closely
as republican pueblos is our joint position of otherness with Chile.
The territory that extends from the Uyuni and Coipaza2 salt lakes to the Pacific
coast is not a binational zone; it is a zone of hauling and transport of the Yura and
LĂ­pez pueblos since immemorial times. It is a natural pass of the coastal mountains
to comply with the complementarity of the different ecological steps within the
Andean system of administration of resources. Today, the residents of Oruro and
Potosi, natives of the two departments adjacent to this route to the coast have
inherited this task, now with commercial purposes inherited from the Spanish
colonial system. In that, they constantly traverse the Bolivia-Chile border as if it
were actually a formality, not a limit.
The awareness of the border in this case is not something irrelevant, however.
While the indigenous peoples see their natural spaces cut by political divisions,
these have also been assumed as part of a new cultural logic as a result of centuries
of transculturation and cultural hybridizations of all sorts.
In the pueblo of Sabaya, at the foot of the volcano of the same name on the border
with Chile, the authorities, who traditionally rotate have certain rites of transfer
of command, which include a wilancha or sacrifice of a white llama and the
recognition of the territory that is being turned over to them by means of a tour of
its entire extension. The words that accompany the ritual are a mixture of Aymara,
Spanish and Latin, with phrases from the old Andean rites, Christian invocations to
specific saints that have suffered a very particular half-breeding and the mention
of the functions of the incoming mayor. Among these functions is safeguarding the
border landmarks that the community safeguards on behalf of the homeland. For
that, as part of the ritual the referenced landmarks are recited.
Unfortunately, the Bolivian state has always been characterised for having little
or no presence on its borders, and especially on those that are established very
far from its administration centre. Therefore, in the Andean world especially,
communities like Sabaya take charge on their own of the responsibility for
legitimately exercising this presence and symbolic defence. In October 2009, the
Bolivian Information Agency3 published the following news:
1
2
3

Taypi is the centre from which the regions arise.
In the department of PotosĂ­, Bolivia.
http://www.eabolivia.com/politica/2349-autoridades-de-sabaya-denuncia-remocion-de-hitos
intermedios-en-la-frontera-con-chile.html consulted in August 2014.
The Mercurio de Antofagasta reproduced the news the same month:
http://www.mercurioantofagasta.cl/prontus4_noticias/site/artic/20091029/pags/20091029191630.
html

79

“After we received complaints that some of the intermediate
landmarks on the border with Chile had been moved, between
landmarks 24, 25 and 26, we organised a commission with the native
authorities to verify whether there was evidence they had been
moved, and unfortunately we confirmed that it was true”, declared
the sub-prefect of the Sabaya province, Santos Ramírez Nina to the
ABI. The movement is most noticeable between landmarks 25 and 26,
where nearly 2.5 kilometres were removed and “even the community
of Paracajaya has remained in Chilean territory and our brothers have
become Chileans”, he added.
It could also be confirmed that landmark 26, which was on the peak
of the Quimsa Chata mountain range, “was also moved nearly 2
kilometres” from its original point.
Ramírez Nina indicated that this problem was reported to the Chancery
“in order to take matters into their own hands”, and we hope that
a commission will be established there as soon as possible to verify
these complaints.
“For being a border province, we carry out the control of our landmarks
as guardians. We control from 20 to 35 and the other provinces do the
same in their territory”.
Previously, the leaders of the border communities sent notes to the
Sub-prefect to complain about the topic of moving the landmarks and
these complaints were forwarded to the Chancery, but were not heard
until now, even though support is offered to any verifying commission
that passes through that zone, pointed out ABI.
The border is therefore something that can take on different forms, and as is evident,
can be moved without causing changes in who the people are, since identities are
constructed, not imposed. The case is exemplary due to the clear connotations it
has. The community of Paracajaya does not stop being the Carangas ethnic group
from the department of Oruro in Bolivia even when it is in Chilean territory.
This leads us to ask ourselves, how much does this border between Bolivia and
Chile really define us? Beyond the illegality of the deed, the reality is that the
human relationship is with the territory, not with the political delimitation.
THE BOLIVIAN SUBMISSION
The earth and what is terrestrial have without a doubt occupied the major part of
the mind and imagination of the Bolivian artists, with María Luisa Pacheco as their
biggest and best representative. Throughout the better part of the XX century, the
80

land and the people have been the leitmotiv of Bolivian art. However, territoriality
as a condition, or the relationships of territoriality with memory and identity have
not been worked as much in depth, probably because the traditional arts, those
most developed in Bolivia, lack the formal tools for discussing and analysing these
issues in depth so that they resound with the public.
The topic of the sea and the national obsession with the recovery of sovereign
access to the Pacific Ocean, on the contrary, has been addressed very eloquently.
The work of Alejandra Alarc贸n satirising the Miss Coastal beauty pageant; or the
romantic video by Narda Alvarado, To Bolivia with Love, in which the artist takes
a bucket of water from the sea and transports it to the headquarters of the navy
in the city of La Paz, to deliver it to the heroes of the Pacific and of the homeland;
and finally, in a less evident manner, the video by Alejandra Delgado in which the
artist writes the work lick in the sand, which is constantly licked by the sea until it
disappears.
The sea, the sea, the sea, is repeated so much without making any sense, saturating
and exhausting anyone who listens to it. As a result of that abuse of the memory
of a lost territory, if in some time it was owned, this curatorial submission seeks
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to leave the sea aside and concern ourselves with the land, which is in the end
what we are on, what we share, what makes us neighbours, what makes us who
we decide to be.
The conflict of our neighbourhood finally turns around an argument of
ownership. To whom does the land and what it holds in its interior belong?
The same land that determines our essence is what is in dispute. That is the
discussion we bring to the table – a reflection regarding the land and the silver,
the devil’s metal, that which has bled Bolivia for centuries and centuries without
leaving us anything more than a plundered territory. That is what the ruins of
Huanchaca are for the Bolivians – the plundered symbol of plundering. The
ruins of Huanchaca of Antofagasta, a mirrored projection of Bolivian mines is
nothing more than a monument to the inability of Bolivia to administer its own
resources in everyone’s benefit and the biggest monument to personal benefit.
Through the mirrors, Andrés Bedoya brings us the echoes of those rivers of silver
drawn between the two Huanchacas and of which now there only remain these
reflections.
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Like colonial reminiscences, although dramatically oligarchic, what the mirrors
finally do is to reflect us; make us face ourselves. However, neither is it a work
that seeks its capital in historiography and the eternal Bolivian frustration. It also
has a strong aesthetic element for the beauty of the metal itself, its interesting
execution, and finally the presentation of a unique scene for a Bolivian â&#x20AC;&#x201C; seeing
himself reflected with the sea in the background.
That is what the land brings us from its bowels and that we are potentially losing
as our collective greed increases. What remains is just the land; which like water
and sun, as Jaime Achocalla points out is the most important constructive element
of the Bolivian Andean region. Its utilisation as an aesthetic element leads us to
think about the moving of the land, the moving of techniques, the migration of
knowledge, and the impossibility of making them universal. The pretension of
owning the land that will be home to our bones. The intervention of the pole is
an appropriation of the symbolic as well as the representative real, and finally,
the natural strength with which the land rebels against the human pretensions of
subjecting it to an aesthetic discourse, which does nothing more that remind us of
the essential: the land does not belong to us.

POST CURATORIAL CONSIDERATIONS
The works of the Bolivian submission, so centred on the land and on what it
provides us, started their dialogues with the setting from which the montage
was initiated. This is particularly the case with the work by Jaime Achocalla.
The artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s submission of subjecting the pole as a symbol of territoriality to the
strength of the land took a very interesting turn when the material gave way
several hours after the montage had been finished. The central adobes gave
way and collapsed, causing a gyrating movement as if they were alive. The work
itself generated its own language when the material started to interact with the
artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions, or vice versa. The adobe cannot be the same in Bolivia and in
Chile because the ground is not the same; it is not composed the same way. The
straw that constitutes the fine weft that holds the mixture together and solid
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does not exist in Antofagasta. Therefore, the work is posed as an unsalvageable
material impossibility. That which some of us have others do not have, including
starting from a principle as universal as the land as a constructive element.
The work by Andrés Bedoya was the last to be assembled. The mirrors were
arranged on pedestals of burnt wood. The installation as an intervention of a small
space created a small enclosure to walk through and be able to see the mirrors. This
minimal circulation was able to redefine the spectator/work/setting relationship,
since without the spectator the work was nearly lost in the setting. Therefore
the wood, more than holding up the mirrors, in the end functioned as limits. The
beauty of the mirrors was undeniable, both as objects and as symbols reminding
us of what called to us, specifically in the ruins of Huanchaca. The mirrors have a
variety of readings that are very suggestive in Bedoya’s submission. The way they
absorb the light generating images would make them seem at the same time to
be small screens that contain everything in front of them, that they contain light,
that they contain land, sea and people. Their size caused them to generate a totally
intimate relationship with the observer.
Any curatorial submission in the space of the ruins of Huanchaca is subject to
being able to capture such special energy and atmosphere that are generated in
its setting. Perhaps having a clearer idea of this phenomenon, the Bolivian works
had been posed in a different way. Even though at the outset there was access
to much information and images of the place, it is a totally different situation to
comprehend at a sensorial level the size of things. On one hand, the size of the
ruins inevitably calls for a dialogue on the same or a similar dimension, while
the formal Bolivian responses were somewhat at the margin of this due to their
location in the ruins. Now then, it is complicated to set out a work that is not going
to be absorbed by the curious phenomenon that the ruins generate; curious in the
sense that they give an indisputable sensation of being faced with pre-Hispanic
ruins. It is a phenomenon that I believe occurred in all the works in their intent to
dialogue with the space.
However, without a doubt, the most interesting scenarios were not necessarily
those set out by the works but rather what was generated in the setting, in the
speeches by the artists, researchers and curators. In those opportunities they were
able to establish the necessary bridges between text, work and exposition. The
spaces for dialogue in SACO3 were the most fructiferous and interesting, without
a doubt. The works remained as they have to be – devices that generate thought,
conversation, discussion and creation.
Lucía Querejazu E.
Curator / Bolivia

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DESERTIFICATION: Revealing the local history.
In the course of the years, we have been able to see different sociocultural
aspects that lie in various pueblos and cities that form part of the northern
Chilean territory; a geography that for over a century has placed the regions of
Antofagasta, Tarapacรก, Arica and Parinacota in conflict against the hegemony of a
pair of political conglomerates residing in the city of Santiago.
These territories situated in the Atacama Desert have infinite resentments
materialised through various codes that show the sovereignty of a nation that at
times bites off more than it can chew. Moreover, the immigration coming from
Chile to the south and a pair of countries close to its borders has resulted in a harsh
sociocultural dynamic that rereads the symbolic narration of who we are and where
we come from. A sort of distortion of those expectations that Chilean territorial
expansion itself has when faced with the rigour of the State and that governs these
idiosyncrasies combined with its local exiled history.
But the capital, an urban empire par excellence, takes control of those places,
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blocking all forms of inhabiting that in the past formed the borders of this great
desert. For that reason our attention is attracted to the overlapping regional seal
that Santiago disseminates and that is counterpoised to the character we see in
the context of Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, or even Andean.
So, within the perspectives of a country that has already annexed a pair of
unconnected spaces and some other waste ground, we analyse that its regimen
envisages an obsolete and erroneous way of “Chileanising” that by conditioning
this geography diligently procures the imposition of other territories. Moreover,
the State policy has very well taken advantage of the empty spaces in the Pampa
and its surroundings, for example, the noteworthy multicultural charisma that
existed prior to the War of the Pacific.
It seems that if we re-study the history of Chile and its Chileanisation processes
we discover that this work has basically questioned the unique and inhospitable
geographic location of the northern area. Furthermore, it has been refuted under
a slogan where the creation of the myth of the winner has been mixed along with
patriotic emblems. The reflection of the Iquique historian Sergio González is worth
mentioning. He explains that part of the social and economic development of the

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northern area has a lot to do with the education received in the late XIX and early
XX centuries, based on “the winner ideology of Chilean society”1 . Therefore the
conjunction of these ideas has torn the fabric of the different interpretations of
what evidences the habitat of a territory that was annexed and expropriated by
force.
Basically, the phases of Chilean territorial expansion have relentlessly disrupted the
memory and identity of these regions; regions that have sought to be desertified
in order to know the past, understand a present and face its constant border
conflicts, including regions that try to investigate concrete geopolitical actions.
Paradoxically with those of a space-nation that is not able to identify itself faced
with its truncated history. Here, more than recovering a cultural and territorial
vision, we believe that the exposition of fragile memories would generally result
in prolonged questions that conceive desertification as an action that strengthens
the local identity. This way, and taking into account all the annulments of those

local roots, we have studied how to show what really must be desertified under a
plot that revises what identity is, faced with the review established by the weight
of history. It is certainly an incomplete work, but one that in one way or another
always reappears.
Therefore, by confirming certain outlines that desertifies the geography, the
territory or the nationality of individuals, we could explain that memory and
regional identity that at times only digresses in the current offices of cultural
institutionalism. So we are seeing a space that expects to be desertified and that
has subsisted at the conjectures of a nationalist ideology.
Certainly, with all this background at times it would be evident to resort to
mnemonic exercises to facilitate the study and of the histories, myths, and legends
that shape a country vision. Strictly speaking, if this northern area means the
construction and foundation of an identity myth regarding thought dealing with
local history, we should resign ourselves to the fact that it is born plainly and
simply of the confrontation between those here and those there.
Now, under a curatorship and in order to evoke this desertifying discourse,
I recapitulate that symbolic and creative creation nearly always takes

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us beyond what is elemental. And this is because the varied actions and sets that
provoke visual culture have anointed a certain multi-lateralism that suggests using
the analysis of that artistic creation.
Therefore, faced with the invitation to generate a curatorial project in the version
of SACO3, I cannot omit the vision of the Chilean artists Claudio Correa and Catalina
González. They are the ones who have assimilated, based on various projects and
expositions, a certain reflection on desertification, not only of memory but also of
the political aspects that these landscapes incubate.
On this occasion, the artists have articulated the dilemmas established by a
panorama of how we perceive people who are our neighbours but are strangers
from a place that covers this ambiguous territory.
For these artists, desertifying the image, object, northern concept and its threepart relationship with Peru and Bolivia reproduces heterogeneous coordinates of
research and action. Although in this case the focuses that have been rescued
for the works fit together their impulsive articulations regarding the inerasable
scenario that originated the vestiges of the Ruins of Huanchaca. More than the
content of each of the works, here a metaphor has been elaborated on what they
have heard about how their neighbours co-exist and that at this precise moment
appears under our contemplation.
The submission by Claudio Correa reproduces a type of sail of a ship called
Foque. The artist prepared an installation that makes mention of the Bolivian
shipped named Antofagasta that was about to be part of the War of the Pacific.
Unfortunately, history tells that the ship was dismantled by the Peruvian military
before it could enter the waters in conflict.
As we see in the image, Correa’s work, Homenaje a la Antofagasta boliviana
(Tribute to the Bolivian Antofagasta) conceptualises which symbols desertify the
history that catalogues a still undefined territory from the viewpoint of being
Chilean. Additionally, at night this work exhibits a ghostly appearance, not only
based on the radiance of its sails pigmented with phosphorescence, but also the
catharsis that arises from a ruined atmosphere and architecture. A place that
brings with it the tragedy of the war and that possesses and argumental base that
exposes the other at all times, even in front of the images that face that “official
history”.
In another one of the nooks of the ruins lays the work of Catalina González that
carries the name El paisaje que nos une (The landscape that unites us). Her
submission strictly reactivates the ruined space of that place with the constant
sound of the movement of water in a fountain or a type of waterwheel. A typical
spring in the Pampa that meant a meeting point faced with the inclemency of
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the heat. A relationship that brings us to surround the work even more when
González sets a political map of the old Bolivian territory on the surface of that
fountain. But it is difficult to appreciate the entire map due to the particles of
sulphur that are floating in the water. Here the “non-metal” that corrodes
the proposed image with its colour is similar to the thought embedded in the
acknowledged and incomprehensible nationalisms that suggested erasing maps
and creating new borders that corralled both outsiders and co-nationals. What is
particular is that the fountain remains as a decorative object that seems to be part
of the spatial design of the construction that couples with the aesthetic in ruin that
speculates on that Chilean “patrimonial” conception.
Any desertification, symbolic or intangible, is impregnated with the directives
that surround the geographical and territorial borders of a country such as ours.
Searching in its extremes, north and south, we will be capable of recognising who
the other is. In summary, desertifying does not resolve the dilemma of co-existing
in this place, but rather generates a semblance that upsets the classical missive
that intends to implement a uniform nation.
Rodolfo Andaur
Curator / Chile

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CHILDREN IN FRONT

Three Peoples Project

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EVERYONE EQUAL AND DIFFERENT.
Like every year, SACO included in its activities a special exercise for children and
young people from the region, which this time invited them to reflect on the
theme of the encounter: the relationship among the three bordering countries:
Peru, Bolivia and Chile – a key issue for the northern area. The project Tres Pueblos
(Three Pueblos) invited educational establishments to encourage their own
students to carry out a game as simple as it is revealing: freely intervene three
stamped human figures on a paper, characterising “the others” with drawings
and colours. Months before the encounter started, more than 600 children, ages
11 to 5 had been congregated, who contributed, based on the ancestral and the
contemporary, their own view regarding “the others”.
The works went a long way: from integrating figures with indigenous attire, such
as Mapuche, Rapa Nui or Kaweshkar, to visualising the other based on nationality
or as urban characters, including a “crazy gringo”, a “dancing Korean” or soccer
players. “The others”, the other cultures or pueblos, could be in any territory near
or far, inside or outside the borders.
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Since its creation in 2004, the activities of the collective group SE VENDE have
been open to creation – to working with experimental strategies and links with
the territory, such as the dissemination of contemporary art through encounters
among artists, expert and the public, guided visits and activities open to children
and young people. The conviction is clear: contemporary art is a relevant experience
in our culture that must be decentralised, democratised and disseminated, from
school education and even crossing over the entire society.
In SACO1, art workshops were held for the entire public, directed by some of the
exhibitors from the international showing Arte + Política + Medio Ambiente (Art +
Politics + Environment) that was in the Antofagasta Station of the Cultural Centre
in July 2012. In 2013, the focus of SACO2 was an encounter of autonomously
arranged projects in Chile and Argentina, including an exposition in the South Wall
gallery of the Huanchaca Cultural Part and the children’s workshop Cómo convertí
una vieja zapatilla en una obra de arte (How I turned an old sneaker into a work
of art), where the children also interacted with the place of the Cultural Park –
the Ruins of Huanchaca. In the three versions, the training of monitors who were
young artists and university students addicted to art was crucial for the program of
guided visits as well as for the workshops themselves.
Pointing toward the youngest, Tres Pueblos turned out to be highly motivating.

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A selection of 250 drawings were presented in the Multi-Use Room of the Viva
Antofagasta Library, while 110 of them made up a mural exhibited in the Huanchaca
Cultural Part, that included the tour of the showing My neighbour. The Other, with
interventions by Peruvian, Bolivian and Chilean artists. Among the more than 200
people who attended the inauguration of SACO3 were a good number of children
who came and went, always attentive to the works, but especially anxious to see
their works in the place.
Based on the singularity of each drawing, of how ingenious, impartial and
sometimes hilarious some versions of “the others” could be, a witty metaphor
was constituted through the base figures stamped on each paper, that turned out
to be all equal but at the same time so diverse thanks to the interventions. The
game revealed “how the post globalisation generation is constructing imageries
of identity”, indicated the director of SACO, Dagmara Wyskiel. We could thereby
see influences from history books, of advertising stereotypes, from TV, the movies,
Internet, or the street. Through the strategies typical of art: conceptualise, imagine
and create, the children of a territory where multi-culturalism is a real and little
assumed situation, carried out an exercise of acknowledgement regarding diversity
and at the same time played a prominent role in an international contemporary art
exposition… Or was the contemporary art perhaps what needed to integrate the
view of those “others” of the youngest and most playful artists, but not for that
less insightful and questioning.
Carolina Lara B.
Journalist Specialising in Art
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FACE TO FACE

Dialogues in the Park

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Curator / Peru

Gustavo Buntinx (1957, Buenos Aires) is an art historian, critic and curator
residing in Peru, founder and â&#x20AC;&#x153;driverâ&#x20AC;? of Micromuseo (at the bottom is the site).
He graduated from the University of Harvard (1978) and has taught in various Latin
American post graduate programs. He has directed the Cultural Centre in Lima and
the Museum of Art in San Marcos. His research, texts, books and curatorships deal
mainly with the relationships between art and politics, art and violence, art and
religion. His texts and expositions have been accepted by important international
institutions. One of his most recognised curatorships has been Lo impuro y lo
contaminado: pulsiones (neo)barrocas en las rutas de Micromuseo (The impure
and the contaminated: (neo) baroque impulses on the routes of Micro museum)
in the Biennial of Valencia (2007) and in the Triennial of Chile (2009). It also stands
out that he has been a founding member of the Civil Society Group that arranged
Lava la bandera (Wash the flag) and other civic rituals for the cultural overthrow
of the dictatorship of Fujimori and Montesinos.
www.micromuseo.org.pe
http://micromuseo-bitacora.blogspot.com/

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GUSTAVO BUNTINX
How did you form your SACO3 team?
It was absolutely anti-programmatic. Exchange of fluids. We are Peruvians, we are
driven. While at the beginning we attempted to follow the rules in a disciplined
manner and divide the work in a systematic and tidy way between researchers,
curators and artist, we very quickly mutually usurped the roles, the functions
and the energies. And what started as a diverse although convergent process
became an absolutely promiscuous, mixed up situation. I conduct a project called
Micromuseo that is formulated precisely based on the criteria of a promiscuous,
mixed and plebeian museality and I believe that logic, that ethic, in addition to
aesthetic, immediately translated the working system of the Peruvian group. Then
researchers, artists and curators interchanged roles and we all became co-authors
of a single organic but twisted, perverse, polymorphic work. That is, ours is a
perverse, polymorphic work team. There you have it.
Who is the other for you?
I myself am the other, and in a sense that does not follow the rules of concordance
of number or of gender; an I plural, an I masculine and feminine, an I transgressor
even of the genetic division of the species. A subtitle for the submission that the
Peruvian team is formulating in Antofagasta could be what our fellow countryman,
the mestizo Vallejo, summarised in a magnificent verse: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am the llamaâ&#x20AC;?.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
It is as always the relationship that desire commands. We look for a sense of
art that returns us to the first, primary, primordial character of creativity, where
finally, as Heidegger already said, art can once again care for, art can shelter, can
provide a place on the earth for the helpless human condition.
What does political art mean?
The uncertain relationship between politics and art is finally an etymological
relationship. The word politics is that point where the concept of what is public
interweaves with that of the city and the citizenry, polis, which actually has a
more utopic than historical strength in our imagery. We are here in the middle
of the desert trying to construct a new polis, the future city, which returns us to
the dialoguing and citizen condition that the modern concepts of democracy have
regrettably lost faced with the imperatives of the spectacle society.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
It is not the life that some vanguard dreamers would believe. It is the spurious
overdraft of life that today we call the spectacle. The problem is that this elemental
evidence is nearly totally forgotten and art runs a terminal marathon to try to
mimic precisely that which is its nemesis: the spectacle. Returning ourselves to
the essential ethos of art involves generating a sudden reverse of that fall into
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the abyss. We have to understand that in our current sad times just the pause
will be revolutionary. Perhaps the most current, effective and radical function of
art is to create spaces for solitude and silence, where we can once again hear
the sounds of our own thoughts, something that the current power desperately
wants to avoid at all costs. Art must therefore return to a quiet, circumspect and
introspective spirit. It must once again practice the lost dialogue with God.
Is there a real possibility for rapprochement among the three countries? What
would have to happen for that to occur?
A new rapprochement is necessary among our three opposed pueblos, because
that tri-partition does not exist. There is a monument on the three-part border,
a triangular obelisk that in the altitudes where the borders between Peru, Chile
and Bolivia meet, that we have taken as a starting point precisely for dislocating
not only the sculptural figure but also the implicit concept in it that is the notion
of a clear demarcation that separates the here and now among three temporal
and geographic sequences. That is absurd, as are the interminable disputes on
maritime, land and cosmic borders. The only definitive solution to these supposed
conflicts is in dissolving the false identities constructed for sad political reasons;
dissolve them into one identity, once again primary, first and primordial, which
is what really unites us. I always summarise it in just one phrase: the biggest art
of diplomacy is to define and draw borders: the biggest art of art itself is to erase
them. And we are here for that.

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Lucía Querejazu (1982, La Paz). Graduate in History from the Universidad
Javeriana de Colombia, specialising in the History of Colonial Art. Ph.D. candidate
in Theory and History of Art at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Her works on viceregal Baroque art are directed especially at the Andean area
between Cusco (Peru) and Potosí (Bolivia). She has also collaborated in the first
research on video art in Bolivia, is co-founder of Replicante, Laboratorio de Arte
Contemporáneo Boliviano (Answerer, Laboratory of Contemporary Bolivian Art)
in which she specialises in art management and critique. She has also arranged
various conservatories in conjunction with the Fundación esArt on contemporary
Bolivian art. She currently lives in La Paz.
www.laboratorioreplicante.com.bo

Curator / Bolivia

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LUCÍA QUEREJAZU
How did you form your SACO3 team?
Based on the proposal that Dagmara sent us and the questionnaire regarding the
neighbourhood and otherness, I thought about which young Bolivian artists. I was
interested in a very young team responding to the topic of the neighbourhood,
but above all from a viewpoint that was more related to Antofagasta as a
geographical place, to Huanchaca for what it does and what it was, and the literal
neighbourhood. For that I chose Andrés Bedoya who works with silver. I was
interested in presenting the topic of neighbourhood to the extent that historically it
interpolates Bolivia very strongly. Being in the Huanchaca foundry right now, being
that the Huanchaca mine is a silver mine that is in Bolivia. That is, the Huanchaca
foundry is a reflection of the Huanchaca mine in Bolivia; it is a silver mine, so I think
it is the best way to project that theme. Also, thinking about territoriality and the
borders in terms of territory, I thought about Jaime Achocalla because he is from
Oruro. Oruro is one of the Bolivian departments that borders with Chile and is the
one that has the biggest flow of commerce and people between the two countries.
So I think that his reflection regarding the land, regarding the border is the best
contribution that can be made in this sense.
Who is the other for you?
The other is inevitably the one who is at your side, but is not you and that contrasts
you, interpolates you, teaches you, confronts you, because as yourself you don’t
have what the other has, and that is what defines us. It can be a relationship of
mutual alimentation, of prosperity and friendship, but always to the extent that
you have an attitude of taking from the other what can serve you, and not taking
from him only for absorbing and eventually trying to erase the limits of otherness
that could harm us. So the other has many degrees based on the other within
oneself: the other my brother, the other my partner, the other my neighbour.
So the other for me is the one who teaches you, who takes your forward, even
stumbling.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
The relationship is very intimate by nature. Creation arises from the territory in
the sense that it arises from someone, from oneself that is constructed based on
the territory. Above all in our country, in Bolivia, where the territory is so strong it
marks us so intensely, geographically as well as ethnically and culturally. It is very
difficult; although there are some, it is very difficult to find Bolivian artists who are
universal or global. It’s not very common. There are works that could end up being
global or de-territorialized if you like, but it is very difficult to separate them. It is
almost a very strong characteristic that keeps Bolivian art based on the indigenism
of the 50’s until today. So it is something very intimate for Bolivian art.
What does political art mean?
Art, in that it is a creative manifestation of a person, is political. Because existing
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is a political decision, making art is a political decision. So the content of art has a
politicising political character, or seeks to interpolate x political situation. Now we
could make a differentiation between the political act of being an artist, making
art, and political art with political content. In Bolivia a lot of political art is made,
but of course it always tends to be very relevant. And so it may be that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
have long duration or validity outside of a very limited contextual time framework.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what could not be involved in art. It could be death. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the only
thing that occurs to me that could be on the other side of art, because I believe
that art covers everything, or at least has aspirations. It is like a reflection of life
so profound that the only thing that could be outside it is death or nothingness
because even death is an artistic reflection.
Is there a real possibility for rapprochement among the three countries? What
would have to happen for that to occur?
I think so, definitively, based on what I have experienced not only now but at other
times in coming to Chile or being in Peru, which is at a human and personal level.
That is certainly the most real way I see that there, as Bolivians we would need the
whole issue of the sea to be understood in the sense that it is like a pain that is fed

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to us from the State and is not necessarily something that bothers us or makes un
uncomfortable at a personal, even personal political level. But they did raise us,
feeding a pain that you would not necessarily have. So probably the best way to
improve that relationship is to understand the nature of our possible confrontation
with the issue of the sea and the War of the Pacific. Beyond that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe there
is any impediment to greater rapport. Now, at the State level, the same is probably
true: that the Peruvian and Chilean States understand the near desperation of
Bolivia to recover a territory that was legitimately lost, but the subsequent terms
of which maybe were not so legitimate. And that for us, as vindication at the state
political level, there is at least a recognition that there was a certain British liberal
influence, for example, in developing the solution to the conflict.

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Curator / Chile

Rodolfo Andaur (1979, Iquique) has worked as contemporary art curator in
the so-called northern hub of Chile, a desert place that has been the centre of
operations to promote the visual arts toward Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay
and Peru. He has participated on curatorial teams focused on the critical reflection
of the dissemination of contemporary art in Chile, such as: Triennial of Chile
(2009); Transcripción_Local (Local Transcription) (2010-11); Súbita_Política
(Sudden Politics) (2012-13); and Economía de Sitio (Besieged Economy) (2013). His
curatorial work was awarded by the National Regional Development Fund (FNDR)
of Tarapacá in 2011, which enabled him to participate in curatorial residences
in Germany and South Korea. A former director of the magazine Sonares, he is
currently a columnist for the magazines artishock.cl and arteycritica.org. Also
highlighted is his participation in various seminars in all the country’s regions,
regarding curatorship and the production of expositions.
http://rodolfoandaur.com/

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RODOLFO ANDAUR
How did you form your SACO3 team?
It was thought based on the strict relationship I maintain with Catalina González
and Claudio Correa in that during about two years they have shown works for
which they wanted to configure a territorial space that continues to be unknown for
many Chilean visual artists. Strictly, they have demonstrated that these territorial
spaces with which they have tried to be involved are generating guidelines for
understanding the phenomena that SACO3 is now inviting us to reflect on,
regarding the neighbourhood, about being Chilean, about maintaining a space for
the convergence of a dialogue that will always be tri-national, will be three-part,
and where a lot of thoughts are going to converge that are not always in the correct
territory. That seems interesting to me because as a curator you always think you
are on the wrong site, when you generate curatorial projects from different places
in Chile, and how that discourse that you are prefiguring is going to have other
subsequent readings that change the intention you had at the beginning. So SACO3
had this amalgam of profiles that Catalina González and Claudio Correa have and
that add to this convincing and very reasoned research, and that Damir Galaz has
had from Tocopilla, speaking from the imagery of northern Chile. I already had
a glimpse of Damir’s research regarding the Chileanisation of the northern area.

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What caught my attention was not only that but his willingness to dialogue
regarding the manners in which the form of understanding this place in Chile in
inscribed.
Who is the other for you?
For me it has always been a topic within the context of working in visual arts in
Chile, because based on the curatorship work itself you always end up being an
other that tries to move about in quite unknown places. And in that sense, the idea
of being invited to SACO as a curator seems very clear to me, always being part
of that other in territories that also always end up delimiting the other. Working
in southern Chile and working in the north, I have been more involved with that
experience of always being the other who is generating a discourse and in the
case today, of being in the ruins of Huanchaca, end up being that other that finally
represents many of us who participate, that we end up recognising a territory that
does not belong to us and at best can associate a flag with us, a patriotic symbol,
but we always end up being the other. So it seems to me to be quite a potent and
reflexive relationship what we can now be doing in this place.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
I have always been tied to projects that in some way try to pressure visual creation
in order to understand what territory is, and to consider the relationship between
territory and geographical space. In Chile we have such a large space to territorially
analyse what happens with visual culture that it is impossible not to reflect every
so often on what we see, on the relationship that those images have with what
occurs to us daily, and obviously what relationship these ways of creating have
with the ways in which people speak locally. I want to mention, for example, what
happens in Puerto Montt with artistic creation and how that artistic creation is
making public what is meant by the relationship between people and the public
space, between people and indigenous communities. And the same happens in
northern Chile. Today, in a place like Antofagasta where problems of an ethnic
nature are starting to be generated as a result of the large number of immigrants
who are arriving in the city, those daily lectures that are generated by the audio
visual media, the photographic media, even the poetic patterns you can see in the
city are being absorbed by those creators who clearly try to be involved in projects
like SACO or with more independent projects, and end up generating these images
that captivate on one hand and on the other generate a certain resentment in the
people in charge of disseminating contemporary art on a local level.
What does political art mean?
I have always considered that contemporary art is eminently political. There is a
relationship; there is an attitude and a way of dialoguing that contemporary art
has that causes it to have a certain political guideline, which does not mean it
is partisan but rather that it has a political attitude regarding what the image
also wants to say. In the case of this project, beyond being political, because
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it is, it involves a common sense that is the sense of sharing realities that are in
a joint territory and that today, due to nationalist ideas, ideas of anti-colonialist
configuration, had to be separated. And we clearly see that in this project that tries
to configure a space where we play at dialoguing regarding what is beyond politics,
regarding this phenomenon that is sharing a tri-dimension, a tri-relationship that
always ends up being paid for by a place that in the end does not command that
relationship, which is the centre of Chile.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
Life itself I believe. Art runs almost in parallel with what occurs daily. I believe
that at times art tries to reflect so much of what is happening that it succumbs
to a fortuitous event of what is dissimilar to this relationship of life itself with art.
What has always been parallel to art is life, what we do each day, and when art
tries to emulate that, clearly the sensitivities are crowded together faced with
different reactions that you cannot control. I believe that in that sense art plays a
fundamental role, because it always shows that sometimes reality itself does not
denote that condition of what we are seeing but rather denotes it when it occurs
to someone else to prefigure it, set it up, work it, dialogue it and criticise it.
Is there in your opinion a real possibility for rapprochement among the three
countries? What would have to happen for that to occur?
In my case I have always been quite close to Bolivia and Peru because I was born
in Iquique and it was from there that I started working as a curator. Therefore,
being in SACO3 as a Chilean curator has somehow meant posing a thesis on our
constant condition for desertifying the information that exists regarding the vents
that have been somewhat censured by the different governments of Chile. Being
here means desertifying and that idea of desertifying also means bringing closer
the criteria of the other, which is that other Peruvian, that other Bolivian, and
that somehow collects information that also serves for curatorship in general. That
is, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t separate myself at all from what the other might generate, that other
Peruvian and that other Bolivian, both in research and in visual creation in this
project, so it seems quite significant to me that we can think about recognising
information and how that information that we are absorbing from the other serves
to generate a dialogue that maintains dissimilar postures. We know that we do not
think alike; the same circumstances that make us understand our territory and the
same circumstances that make us understand our nations, or the way in which one
feels Chilean in northern Chile or how one feels Peruvian from the capital, or the
Bolivian who feels Andean from a paradoxical circumstance. SACO also invites us
to re-pose the idea of how to understand the territory and how to understand it
knowing that we have a nation, an identity card and a passport to answer to. So
within those dichotomies of feeling part of, we are also working to understand
where we are part of, and there is the big question that remains, not only so that
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we take it into consideration in SACO but also with what the Chilean State wants to
say at an educational level, wants to include in its guidelines for forming a Chilean
identity in different places.

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Researcher / Peru

Harold Hernández (1966, Lima). Anthropologist, graduate and master’s degree
from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú with doctoral studies at the
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, where he teaches courses on
comparative anthropological and ethnographic theory. Director of the Research
Centre of the Universidad Norbert Wiener of Lima. He shares stays between
Lima and Cusco. His research work has dealt mainly with religious ideology,
both Andean (representations and discourses on Saint Santiago and Takanakuy
in the southern Andean area of Peru), and popular urban (Sarita Colonia) and
Protestant (Pentecostalism). His interest is oriented toward popular culture and
its representations within the contemporary space, especially religious. Linked to
Micromuseo, he prepared an essay on a ritual of violence in the southern Andean
region of Peru, Takanakuy, which accompanies a museum graphic exposition.
There he sustains that ritualised violence controls indiscriminate violence.

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HAROLD HERNĂ NDEZ
Who is the other for you?
What I come to present at SACO3 is specific research on what some other
Peruvians think is the other for them. But given that the question is for me, and
being Peruvian compared to the Bolivians and Chileans, it is difficult for me to
put them all in a package. So just based on a systematic, profound, severe, and
impassionate reflection, the conclusion could be reached that there are many
others; the conclusion that stereotyping flesh and blood people based exclusively
on their national identity card or passport is very complicated. And that is because,
basically to say it in a very short phrase: violence engenders more violence, from
discourse up to what is strictly violent. So when I think about Chileans and Bolivians,
despite that a stereotype comes to mind that was learned through television, on
the radio and in school, from a very early age, I have to step back and not think
with stereotypes; I have to think based on actual experiences. Nonetheless, that is
something that is very difficult to have always up front.
Who is the other for your fellow countrymen?
That question also is complicated because if it is difficult for me to say who the
other is, it is more difficult to say who the other is for the rest of the Peruvians
who number nearly 30 million. I believe there is a wide diversity of feelings and
thoughts about who the other is in the sense of Bolivians and Chileans and that
depends on how you cut society in terms of trying to analyse. I imagine that
members of the military think differently than the sectors of people from the
left with regard to Chileans. Given the conditions of education or formation, or
whether a person is a member of the military or a civilian, or of right or leftist
thought, or based on the life experience a person has, for example if a person is
very involved in his parochial space, will not have any type of experience of contact
with the others and images will sometimes be formed of others that are even
monstrous and totally deformed, and a resulting discourse will be elaborated that
does not have anything to do in principle with reality. And just as that person who
could be a Peruvian has that stereotyped and caricaturist discourse, it could be
that a Chilean has the same discourse, and a Bolivian also, and that innumerable
discourses would be generated, each more violent, trying to justify that which
cannot name a single person and is the discourse of the nation.
What are the essential conclusions of your research for My neighbour. The other?
I come and go between Lima and Cusco and I am always interested in the
intellectual space of Cusco, being that Cusco is a regional space seen by Lima,
by the capital of Peru from a perspective that is perhaps overly sovereign, that
has scarce economic and commercial development. So prejudices are generated
between cities within the national States or territories themselves. What interests
me is seeing how the intellectual space of Cusco, and basically the artistic space
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linked to art read the national spaces bordering Bolivia and Chile. Although they
are not on the border they are very close, above all due to the flow of tourists.
While this is not conclusive, what I see is that based on an artistic discourse of
young sectors, with a leftist discourse not necessarily militarist, some stereotyped
nationalist discourse can be attenuated. I see that in larger sectors in terms of age
groups there is a discourse that is a little more traditional linked to nationality and
with regional identity that is very marked, with which they are saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am better
than the otherâ&#x20AC;?. And that, I understand, is due to prejudices that are very simply
explained: an unsatisfied expectation of the region, and when there are unsatisfied
expectations, the response is violence, at least in the discourse. And this applies
not only against people from Lima but also against all foreigners, based on a very
complex phenomenon in Cusco that is the brutal, industrial flow of tourists. That
generates a notable rejection for a number of reasons. But the experience of the
left and the cosmopolitan experience of young people attenuate that antagonism
toward the other. And that seems interesting to me. While I do not have definitive
conclusions, the face to face contact, the actual contact between people of different
nationalities causes that ghost of a monstrous or caricaturist representation of the
other to dissolve. I asked some interviewees who have some type of prejudices
against Chileans whether they know a flesh and blood Chilean closely, and the
answer was no. So the national State would have to be differentiated from the
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people who live within the national States. Although my discourse is not utopic, it
does not pretend to believe much in humanity, I believe that it could be said that
art and politics could bring people closer, or at least attenuate those ghosts of the
monstrous representation of the other who they have never known.
Is there in your opinion a real possibility for rapprochement among the three
countries? What would have to happen for that to occur?
I can answer this way: at the end of last year a book was published in Chile that
was published in Peru at the beginning of this year, Las historias que nos unen
(The histories that unite us) - a compilation by two historians, one Peruvian and
one Chilean, Jorge Parodi and Sergio GonzĂĄlez. It is a total of 21 stories that intend
to establish a historiography with small experiences, many biographical linked
to art, popular music or sports. What these authors intend to do is to establish,
although in a very humble way, a historiography that makes an actual emphatic
rapprochement between flesh and blood people, between people of Chile and
Peru. When I started reading the book, it seemed very naĂŻve and utopic. But after
finishing it, I reached the conclusion, and from the interviews I held myself in
Cusco, that a real rapprochement is possible. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say perfect by any means, but
I believe it is possible based on establishing stories that attenuate the discourse of
the schools regarding all nationals, the discourse of the military stratum.

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Researcher / Bolivia

Juan Fabbri (1986, La Paz). Studies Anthropology at the Universidad Mayor de San
Andrés (UMSA). Currently resides in Quito, Ecuador, where he is taking the Master’s
course in Visual Anthropology in the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences
(FLACSO, Ecuador). He was part of the Institute of Anthropological Research of
the UMSA (2011-2012). He is part of the group of researchers of Anthropology
of Art (2013-2014) and the Observatory of Racism in FLACSO (2013-2014). With
his thesis: “Intercultural relations and symbolic imagination in contemporary art
performed in Bolivia” (2013), he graduated with the highest grades. He is currently
interested in the indigenous representation in photography and non-professional
video, as well as in the history of Bolivian cinema. In parallel, he has had an
artistic career with expositions and participations in biennials. He was the Bolivian
representative at the World Event Young Artists in Nottingham, United Kingdom
(2012).
http://juanfabbri.wordpress.com/

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JUAN FABBRI
Who is the other for you?
It is a construction mainly from modernity, of the long XVI century. The other has
to do with the modern and the non-modern. So for me the other ends up being a
ghost also of a certain society that is constructing it. The other is a representation,
it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist for me. The other is an imagery that a society constructs and has to
do mainly with the modern and the non-modern; the civilised versus the barbarian,
the savage; city and jungle; Europe and the rest, above all the colonial countries,
Latin America, Africa and Asia. The other is in itself a ghost that is created by a
society to imagine other people who are not the others. For them the other can be
someone who is expressing himself as other. I say, for a Chilean, the other can be
a Bolivian or a Peruvian; for a Bolivian the other can be a Chilean. It is a question
of perspective. Nobody can be identified as an other because it is a perspective
of place.
Who is the other for your fellow countrymen?
I believe that one of the points that is most interesting and that has surprised me
in doing the interviews, the fieldwork, is thinking that the other for Bolivians is the
Peruvian and the Chilean. Because in all societies many others are constructed. For
a group of males, the woman can be the other, the children can be the others. That
is, admitting and justifying that there are many others and that this is changeable,
modifiable, I am only going to concentrate this response on the other Peruvian and
Chilean, which is what we researchers have tried to answer. My biggest surprise
has been that Peruvians are not seen as the other; they are seen as a group that
has quite a lot of relationship with Bolivia with a lot of exchange. Reference is even
made to common families, common relationships, to societies that have encounters
and a common dynamic. What is most interesting in the research is finding that
Peruvians are not the other but rather a we, contrary to the Chileans. Chileans
in this case are an other, but an other that is aggressive and in that is distanced
from the XVI century because if the construction of the other has to do with the
other who is inferior, lesser, primitive, extemporal, for Bolivians the Chileans are
the other who is aggressive, racist and violent. For Bolivians the position is placed
in reverse. They speak of the other Chilean with fear, as someone who is abusive,
admitting that the other is a discourse, a construction that in some way seeks to
discipline. But it is complicated to think that the disciplining goes in reverse, goes
from someone who sees Chileans as tremendously violent, racist, capitalist and
white. From that there also arises the interesting conclusion of understanding the
other based on another dynamic. It is an inverted position in power relationships.
What are the essential conclusions of your research for My neighbour. The other?
They were very interesting from the start. Posing the topic could have a
conclusion, because it is a very interesting topic. To what extent. I come more
from anthropology, thinking a lot about my country, my region, but I have never
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proposed thinking of the neighbouring country as an other. I have always thought
of the other Indian in Bolivia or even the other as a sexual difference, but have
never thought of the other based on my bordering countries. So while this is a
curatorial position, it seems very beautiful to me and for that reason I bring it as
a conclusion, because reflecting that the other could be a neighbouring country
seems very novel to me, above all for countries that do not look at us, do not
find us. For me it was very interesting work to think of the Chileans and Peruvians
as others, or rather ask myself. One of the most important conclusions is that I
found that the Peruvian is not an other for Bolivia. I have started with a hypothesis,
thanks to the curatorial project, of the Peruvian as an other, but I have found that
it is not so. I believe that is what is most interesting from the research: realising
that you ask questions that are false, that are also discursive and that are perhaps
useful for art. And the second point is that the Chilean is an other, and it is very
strong to realise that this construction of the other regarding Chile is inverted;
as I said, regarding power relationships. The Chilean is seen as an other who is
aggressive, who imposes, an other who is strong, white and racist. And that speaks
a lot of Bolivia and how Bolivians are seen. In the end, my research did not seek
to talk about the Chilean, or the Peruvian. Basically it speaks of the Bolivian and of
me as a Bolivian. It speaks of my relationships, of my comments. I am not seeking
objectivity with the paper I bring. I am seeking a personal feeling, a discourse
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that traverses me, table comments, comments among friends. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe
you can talk about Chilean; I do not know them. Nor about Peruvians. I can talk
about Bolivians and the ghosts of Bolivians. So I believe that is my work â&#x20AC;&#x201C; talk
about Bolivians, but of ghosts. So the question of who is the other for your fellow
countrymen is difficult. I can talk about your ghosts considering that those are the
others.
Is there in your opinion a real possibility for rapprochement among the three
countries? What would have to happen for that to occur?
I believe that an encounter is real and I believe that it is held above all on the
borders. Other than that, many Bolivians come to Chile for their vacations. Even
more so to Peru. There is a political agenda in Bolivia so we are struggling and it
is for the recovery of a small territory of the sea. For us it is important that this
agenda is achieved. We do not become inferior because of the claim; we are not
asking for something to be given to us as a nice gesture or paternally. We are
asking for a small piece of sea for symbolic dignity. We want to recover access to
the sea. It seems important to me as symbolic dignity, as a political agenda and
also as a historical memory. I believe that our new generations have to think about
historical memories, not like the old generations but yes, think about it. If not, we
will continue living in colonial times; people will continue to be exploited. All these
are historical qualms that have to pass. And I believe that is the position. Yes, I
believe it would be interesting if a small strip could be granted, a small territory
of the sea.

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Researcher / Chile

Damir Galaz-Mandakovic (1983, Tocopilla), researcher, professor of History
and Geography and Graduate in Education (Universidad de Tarapacá), Master’s
in Social Sciences (Universidad de Antofagasta), Master’s in Social Anthropology
and doctorate in Anthropology (Universidad Católica del Norte). Has worked on
topics related to the local history of Tocopilla, covering social history, history of
architecture of the modern movement, urban anthropology and international
migrations. Has researched the enclave economies in the sub-Andean Bolivian
plateau, analysing the migration flows and counter flows. Has published eight
books in this regard, has participated in a dozen collective books and has published
articles on Chileanisation, biopolitics, xenophobia and contemporary trans-border
migrations.
http://damirgalaz.bubok.es
www.tocopillaysuhistoria.blogspot.com

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DAMIR GALAZ-MANDAKOVIC
Who is the other for you?
Personally I have my doubts whether or not the other exists. I think not, because
this is a dichotomous construction. It has to do with our conception of the modern
world that constructs otherness in order to explain itself. And this is contributed
to by the public schools and the different States that from their centralities seek
an antagonist in order to construct a protagonist. So this construction of otherness
is artificial and completely difficult for our neighbour relations, for our everyday
lives as citizens and as people who circulate in this tri-nationality that is Chile,
Peru and Bolivia. Therefore I hesitate to speak of otherness in a context where the
anthropological, historical and material processes are so similar and that there are
disparities in an area that has been populated for thousands of years. We are not
going to have a different perception of our neighbours based on these last 200
years. Therefore I don’t believe there is a defined otherness with which we could
feel different.
Who is “the other” for your fellow countrymen?
Chileans have been victims of an education and also a military discourse that has
made them understand Peruvians and Bolivians from a viewpoint of race. Chile
has been presented as a white country starting in the XIX century, which has
been disseminated throughout the XX century and continues narrating our life
at the beginning of the XXI century. This biological myth that the military history
speaks of says that Chileans are the fruit of the Mapuches, the Spaniards and
the holders of large colonial estates. And that supposedly homogenised its race
and enabled it to win the War of the Pacific, understanding the Peruvians and
Bolivians as heterogeneous countries, as conflictive countries because they have
a great diversity of ethnic groups. Chileans have been constructing Peruvians and
Bolivians as an other, as different, where their bodies have been constructed as a
text that speaks based on dark skin, based on an Andean world, based on physical
traits that are different, that these are no more than the colonial relationships
that are expressed in work, in education, in sports, in humour, and that criminalise
and infantilise our relations with Peru and Bolivia based on the paternalism of the
Chilean State.
What are the essential conclusions of your research for My neighbour. The other?
It has to do with the predominance of the military discourse and how a certain
type of relations has been becoming normalised based on the Chilean military
discourse. Even though we don’t realize, it is in our education, in our schools, in the
names of the streets, in our festivals, in our list of anniversaries of historical events,
and that causes to separate increasingly more from Peruvians and Bolivians due
to the effect of the commemoration of a war that was also improper for Chile, a
war initiated by outside, English interests. So the War of the Pacific is posed to us
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more than an economic problem, as a territorial problem: that through the War of
the Pacific the relations among Chile, Peru and Bolivia are racialized, with an ethnic
component of supposed inferiority to the Chileans. Then that discourse has been
reproduced through different devices, which necessarily refer to feeling that we
are Chilean, and this process of Chileanisation that started after these territories
became ours, continues, completely in force. It is symbolic violence that we are
applying and of which we are also victims, because we are part of a ventriloquist
nationalism that speaks of a totally political institution and how from that military
policy it is sought to colonise and homogenise what is supposedly the Chilean
reality.
Is there in your opinion a real possibility for rapprochement among the three
countries? What would have to happen for that to occur?
There should be a three-part willingness, in first place regarding how to construct
a history in common, on how we leave aside the stereotypes, the prejudices,
the biases, the historiographic, anthropological, educative, economic and
political vices in order to be able to construct a community that gives preference
to a good coexistence. Without a doubt, cultural exchanges in research, in
creating a three-part free circulation zone are completely necessary in order to
live together in a better way. In the Chilean case I believe that one of the first

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things is to eliminate any anniversary of historical events that refers to the War of
the Pacific, not reproducing this violence, this intrastate and interstate bullying in
the schools also, for example, not celebrating the 21st of May or the 8th of October,
not forgetting these dates but not feeling them as a war trophy. Another thing that
would be very important symbolically is changing the names of streets that refer to
names of members of the military who in practice were criminals, violent persons
who defended totally outside interests. Rethink the war bands, the place names,
the celebrations and not forget also that the history of Antofagasta, of Tocopilla,
of Calama or of Arica do not start in 1879 but rather much further back, with very
early populations. With these national histories they are being erased. So I believe
that we must have a greater opening, and in that the professors, the historians
and the politicians have a lot to say. For that I point, for example, to a free and
sovereign access for Bolivia as a great gesture that speaks to us of reconciliation
and brotherhood between these countries.

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Artist / Peru

César Cornejo (1966, Lima). Master’s in Sculpture and Doctorate in Arts from the
National University of Arts and Music of Tokyo; architect from the Universidad
Ricardo Palma in Lima. Resides between the United States, Peru and England. Has
received awards and residencies from institutions such as the Creative Capital
Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Art Omi International Artists
Residency, The British Council, The Henry Moore Institute, Vermont Studio Center
and the Ministry of Education of Japan, among others. Individual exhibitions in
the gallery Lightcontemporary in London; the galleries Kobo Chika and Gyokuei
in Tokyo; Bellini in Yokohama, Japan; Lucía de la Puente, Artco and the Peruvian
North American Cultural Institute in Lima; and Art Positions, Basel Art Fair Miami
2011. His work has been included in the V Biennial of Clay in Maracaibo Venezuela,
Biennial S-Files of the Museo del Barrio NY, Biennial of Busan 2008, in South Korea,
among others. His work is represented by the galleries Lucía de la Puente in Lima
and Art Front Gallery in Tokyo.
www.cesarcornejo.com
www.punomoca.org

130

CĂ&#x2030;SAR CORNEJO
Who is the other for you?
Being here has obligated me to reflect on the relations among the three countries
invited, Bolivia, Chile and Peru, being a person who left Peru 18 years ago. I went
to study and lived in Japan for seven years, then three in England, and I currently
live in the United States where I work. My idea of the other is not only the image I
had when I lived in Peru. It has been fed by other images that I have collected as I
have travelled and have gotten to know people from other countries. So for me to
now see a person from Chile or from Bolivia is like seeing a person from another
country like Pakistan or India or Germany. And I am rediscovering aspects that I
had perhaps forgotten regarding certain stereotypes that exist in these countries
regarding the other that are influences above all by the event of the war with
Chile, the War of the Pacific, that in some way is still the predominant milestone
for the three countries. I also try to nourish my work with these other experiences
that I have collected in different places or from the exchanges I am having in this
place, of that impartiality that has enabled me to get to know other cultures. So for
me it is something that maybe is different for people who have not travelled and
have not had the opportunity to get to know people from such diverse places. But
it is definitely a real problem and I am very glad that it is being addressed in this
event, asking us about this topic
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
I studied architecture before being an artist and my work has always been
connected with architecture, with the space, with the territory. So I tend to create
a work that responds to the place where I am creating it. In particular, here, in
showing us the images, the first was that they seemed to be pre-Hispanic ruins
that reminded me of the ruins of the Incas or of other cultures in Peru. Then they
informed me that this is the old seat of a silver processer from the XIX century. I
believe the presence it has definitely has influenced what we are doing here and
this great space is also offering us the opportunity to do something in a bigger
dimension that we had planned. Because we had images of the place, but in reality,
a piece cannot be decided in detail until you arrive. We have nourished ourselves
with the experience of visiting the ruins and feeling the space, the relationship
with the sea, the possibilities that exist for observation. It is a type of temple, but
a temple for different religions, if they could be so called, or beliefs that have a lot
to do with the culture of our countries, the history of our sub development a little,
represented in this abandoned construction of an industry that seemed promising
at the time but later was not, which is a little like the story of Latin America also.
What does political art mean?
That term is given to a group of works that address topics of the political life of the
countries or social problems. But it seems to me a term that is wrong. When art
needs labels or categories, I think it stops being art. Art for what it is and that society
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develops has to be free from these labels and one of them is that which has placed
a certain type of expression as political art and that is not what those artists would
seek.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
I believe that passiveness, complacency, mediocrity is what an artist fears the most.
Artists struggle above all against that. Of course, there are situations of oppression
and injustice that sometimes drive not only artists but common people to do
something and I think the role that art has in those circumstances is to be a tool
for people to channel their energy, their concerns, but that happens organically. It
is not something that is necessarily planned or programmed.
Do you believe the fact of being Peruvian is expressed in your work?
Yes, despite having travelled and worked in various cultures and having been
influenced by those cultures, there is always an element that relates to my
experience in Peru, the fact of being Peruvian, of having been raised in Peru, but
at the same time the question of what it means to be Peruvian is valid. Because
in Peru there are different regions and experiences. What a person from the jungle
may think of Peru or feel about being Peruvian is very different from what someone
from the north or from the coast may feel. What we have is a preoccupation for
certain topics, a sensitivity. And there is a legacy that is related to the land and
that is manifested in some way with the work that many Peruvians perform.
Tell us about your work in SACO3.
The work that we are presenting has been realised as the result of collaboration
with the curator Gustavo Buntinx, who is the director of the project, and with the
researcher Harold HernĂĄndez and Elliot TĂşpac. It has been a work of communication
and of a constant exchange of ideas that has originated this product that cites
the obelisk at the borders of Chile, Peru and Bolivia. It also has as an element a
three-headed llama that represents the three countries. The relation is with the
shadows. The obelisk functions as a sundial and I believe that it somehow poses
the question of whether this llama is separating or uniting, which would mean
whether the three countries can think about a future that is going to unite us or
that is separating us more.

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Artist / Peru

Elliot Urcuhuaranga Cárdenas or “Elliot Tupac” (1978, Lima). Emblematic graphic
cultivator of the Chicha cartel, with deep roots in Huancayo, the land of his
parents, a place in the midst of the Peruvian mountains from where the essence
of the Chicha culture comes from. University studies: Communication Sciences at
the Universidad San Martín de Porres; free courses in drawing and painting. Has
cultivated in his manner an obsession for typography and the drawing of letters,
receiving orders from cinematographic productions (Madeinusa, 2005, and La Teta
and La Luna, 2009), publications in magazines (Creative Review and Joia, 2010)
and the cover of the magazine Somos (El Comercio), in addition to expositions and
workshops inside and outside Peru. Highlighted among the international instances
are: Expo Shanghai 2010, Sudala y Chile Chicha (2010), Gallery Primary Projects
(Miami, 2011), Trimarchi 2011 (Argentina), 1st Festival of Urban Intervention
Hecho en Casa (Homemade) (Santiago, 2012), Puma Urban Art Exhibition 2013 in
the Recoleta Cultural Centre (Buenos Aires), Festival Living Walls of Atlanta (2013),
Festival of Urban Art En la Calle (In the Street) (Bogota, 2013).
www.elliottupac.com

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ELLIOT URCUHUARANGA O “ELLIOT TÚPAC”
Who is the other for you?
It is always that individual who achieved seeing for the first time that which I have
the need to know a little more. This is probably based on my first setting, which
could be the new neighbours that one has. And then at a territorial level and also
at a national level. Always that need to understand the idiosyncrasy, the way of
thinking, the way of seeing things, of seeing one single object in different ways,
which I believe is a constant need of seeing the neighbour.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
It is a constant need that enables me to question things. Because finally there is no
creative attempt if I don’t start involving in principle the immediate surroundings
in which I am developing. Then that gives me guidelines to develop a graphic
proposal where I link the design, the painting and the muralism. There is always an
internal questioning, socially speaking, that enables me to get much information
in that regard.
What does political art mean?
It would be difficult to define. The way I see it, it always goes by the topic that
any creative act, any act of development and searching generates a political act. It
doesn’t even necessarily maintain a defined order of political thought, but rather
is the fact of developing an idea that people can reinterpret another way. I believe
that could already be considered a political act.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
I believe it is the simple act of crossing your arms and letting everything happen as
a spectator. Art itself has a need to generate some type of questioning in people
and goes that way.
Is the fact of being Peruvian expressed in your work?
It is reflected a lot in what I develop in my work, definitely. I have many immediate
references from the family, based on what my father calls artisan people, people
linked to social communication, and all that has been able to somehow mark this
subsequent development of my work. Definitely there is a direct relation.
Tell us about your work in SACO3.
At first it started from the idea and the invitation from Gustavo Buntinx, Peruvian
curator, of developing individual ideas. But this time it is a collective work. So we
tossed around a lot of ideas, suggestions. If I have to talk about the sum of my
proposal, it has to do with the development here on the esplanade of a graphic
attempt of what a line of Nazca would be, taking advantage of the elements that e
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xist here and making an attempt at the relation between the geographic space
where the lines of Nazca were developed and this space, which is considered dry.

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Artist / Bolivia

Andres Bedoya (1978, La Paz). From 1997 to 2001, he studied Fine Arts at the
University of Texas (Austin). Then after residing in New York for ten years, he
currently lives in his native city. He has held 15 individual expositions, reaching
spaces such as the National Art Museum, Nube Gallery and Kiosko Gallery, in
Bolivia, as well as the Abrons Arts Center and Salon81 of NY. Internationally, his
work has been in Argentina, Chile, Peru, England and the United States, including
instances such as the fairs Pinta NY, Art Lima and Ch.ACO, in Santiago. In NY, he
participated as an artist or as organizer of events in various spaces including MoMA
PS1. In 2012 he was highlighted at the Biennial of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
www.andresbedoya.com

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ANDRÉS BEDOYA
Who is the other for you?
In reality it is a question that never interested me much. Because defining the
other implies something very concrete in human nature or in human relations:
that there is a centre and around it are others. And that is a falsehood, obviously,
an unnecessary construction that is used to define distances, to exoticize. So
there is no other. With everyone being others, the concept ceases to exist. It is
not interesting other than to study why the concept of other is construed, and I
do not consider that concept outside a context of learning and trying to acquire
certain influences in my work. Because I don’t like to enter into conversations
about things I don’t know without having certain awareness. But talking about
individuals, people, pueblos, nations, there really is no other. It is a very interesting
philosophical and current political question, but as an artist it doesn’t interest me.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
That question is so broad that it is nearly impossible to answer. That is, the personal
territory, obviously that topography is generated through your experience. Then
the relationship is totally immediate and concrete. But if you are speaking broadly
at the level of a nation, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, then the territory is more anticreation. It is a space that limits, a limitation that if you like is even destructive
of culture, it generates conflicts, generates the other, but in a negative manner. It
generates all types of economic conditions that in general benefit very few people.
The territory, broadly and politically is anti-creation; it is complete destructive.
So it depends a little on how you define it. In my work the territory is obviously
Bolivia, but in the context of my experience in Bolivia and what it had meant to
grow up in a country like Bolivia, having left long ago and what it means to return
to Bolivia, defined very clearly from a personal framework. In that sense it means
everything for my personal creation.
What does political art mean?
Political art is in reality something that some gringo invented to define what he
perceived was being generated in spaces such as Latin America: art related to very
clear and very obvious political events, or situations related to those ruptures of
power. But nearly all art is political in reality, a reason for which that categorisation
of art is a little ghetto and in some way Latin American artists are just now starting
to leave that ghetto. All art is political, obviously, some more than others. Art
has the function of bringing some light to certain situations, whether they are
personal, obviously political. So in a country like Bolivia and living in a city like
La Paz, all life is political: you can’t go out to eat without there being a political
aspect that defines where you are in the city, what you eat, and how much it
costs. Everything has a political implication. Being a Bolivian who lives in La Paz,
being the seat of government, the way in which politics defines everyday life is
a little more palpable. So it is a little difficult to say that art is political and that
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political art is revealing something more when in reality in a space like Bolivia
political art documents something, but of which the people are perfectly aware.
So while it is useful for people outside of Bolivia or Latin America to more or less
capture the type of issue that is being addressed, the category of political art is not
particularly useful for Latin American artists. It is somewhat obvious.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
The only thing that is opposite is not doing art. I don’t believe there is a dark
force of evil that is on the opposite side of art. The only thing is not to generate it,
which is also okay. I don’t believe that art is the most important thing in the world,
nor do I believe that it is vital for the whole world to understand it. There are
other cultural expressions that are equally or even more important. Contemporary
art, or at least by linking it with markets turns it into an object that is too easily
modified. Then it loses much of its value.
Do you believe the fact of being Bolivian is expressed in your work?
Totally. I lived outside of Bolivia for a long time and I came back because I realised
that being Bolivian had an enormous importance. Because my work is very personal.
I don’t deal with topics outside my personal experience and what is personal
is also context. In order to understand yourself within, you have to understand
what surrounds you. So the answers I was looking for in many cases were in the
physical, social and economic context that was in Bolivia. Understanding who I
am necessarily obligated me to understand who I am in Bolivia, what Bolivia has
been, etcetera. So I consider that the best work I have done has always been in
Bolivia, work that perhaps is not as good but that has been important for me. So
yes, Bolivia at this particular moment, being Bolivian, working in Bolivia generating
work related to that context is everything for me. There is no other option.
Tell us about your work in SACO3.
It is a series of mirrors made of silver and that in reality is an echo of the space in
which we are working, which is the Huanchaca Cultural Park that was a Bolivian
foundry where thousands of tons of silver were processed each month. It is
curious to work with the mirror, since it is a luxury object that exists. There are
colonial mirrors made of silver in Bolivia that you can go to see in convents. So
in some way, something as frivolous as a mirror, being produced from a noble
metal, is always an interesting contrast. And also, I believe that the history of the
region is defined by how the resources have been exploited: mainly by people
from outside. And in the case of Bolivia, while a more recent history has been tin,
silver is what has defined the country’s history. Potosí, which became the biggest
city of the world in its time, had the foundry with the highest concentration of
silver in the world: the Cerro Rico. So both the glory and the misery of Bolivia
are closely associated with that metal. And curiously, this foundry, which had cost
the equivalent of millions of dollars functioned only a short time. The fact that
it functioned so little gives an idea of the type of wealth and the waste that had
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existed, of the frivolous manner in which the elite have acted in the country and
I am sure, in the entire region. So it seemed curious to me to work with that
material. I did not want to speak specifically of the sea or of those things, because
the problems that exist in the region go far beyond that. They are not reduced to
that.

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Artist / Bolivia

Jaime Achocalla Quisbert (1984, Oruro). Visual artist, graduated from the Institute
of Fine Arts of Oruro. In 2007, he received First Prize in the national painting
contest Pinta la Navidad con nosotros (Paint the Nativity with us), organised by
Aldeas Infantiles SOS and was selected in the Biennial SIART. Highlighted individual
expositions: Sombra y Materia (Shadow and Matter) (Casa Municipal de Cultura
Oruro, 2011) and Espejos Clisados (Stencilled Mirrors) (Instituto Superior de Bellas
Artes, 2012). The same year he did the KIOSKO residency in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
In 2013, he participated in Nexusurnexus, part of the Brooklyn International
Performance Art Festival, El Bunker space, La Paz; and was invited to the exposition
La Quinua: el grano de oro desde el arte (La Quinua: the grain of gold from art) in
the National Museum of Art in La Paz, Bolivia. In 2014 he was included in the
official selection for the Youth Art Contest Expresarte 2014, organised by the
cultural centre of Spain in Bolivia. Current member of the Kolektivo de Agresi贸n
Kultural Perro Petardos and organiser of the annual contemporary art show
Antiarte in Oruro, Bolivia.

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JAIME ACHOCALLA
Who is the other for you?
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my other part. That is, I am okay if the other part is okay. That is within the
Andean Cosmo vision that understands that situation of reciprocity and that I
assume is that way; that it is I myself who is there. We are the same species. The
other is part of me, influences me. It is my problem and also my possibility.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
I believe it is something intrinsic. It speaks of the space in which you live. When
you make art, identity is generated. What you have lived from the place, from the
geographic feature, the urbanity, from the space in which you live, from there the
discourse is constructed. And obviously the place speaks through you. It is a very
close relationship between territory and creation. I believe it is important to know
how to read the territory in which you are in order to propose ideas, concepts.
What is political art?
It would be the joint creation: politics as the art of governing. Human
beings are political animals so I understand that it is art with responsibility.
I believe that making art speaking of important things, that question
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important situations, helps to build a better social situation. I understand that it
would be a part of what art is committed to and is transformed into a point of
social intervention, of social change, of a paradigm of thought that can generate
dynamics that favour the development of people as persons.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
It would be a kind of no action, of a cold state. I understand that it would be
doing nothing. The nothing would be the other side of art. Because I understand
that art functions as a human dynamic strictly speaking and is action, movement,
something alive. So the other side would be nothing, stillness, that which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
move, that which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel, perhaps it would be without life.
Do you believe the fact of being Bolivian is expressed in your work?
Of course, that is intrinsic. I am Bolivian, I think, I have been born, I have grown
up there and obviously the fact of being Bolivian is in the work. I am working
with earth, adobe, which is the material with which houses are built, not during
recent times, but it is the history of Bolivia. A long time ago abode was used for
construction. I live in a house of adobe. So that has a language, it generates a
social environment where people grow and I am working with that; I am proposing
the aesthetic of the land and that is in Bolivia.
Please tell us about your work in SACO.
It is a kind of totem of earth that explores the aesthetic, symbolic possibilities
of that which is constructed of such a noble material and that is available to
everyone, which is the earth. And I understand that the weave of straw that holds
it is a cohesion of that which at times is dispersed and is structured that way. I very
much like the idea of working with that and the texture, the form of the earth that
is so uneven also seduces me a lot.

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Artist / Chile

Claudio Correa (1972, Arica). Lives and works between Valdivia and Santiago.
Graduate and Master’s in Visual Arts (Universidad de Chile). Highlighted among
his individual works: Cuatro formas de ser republicano a la distancia (Four ways of
being republican at a distance) (Galería Patricia Ready, 2013), Agencia Intermediaria
(Intermediary Agency) (Galería Gabriela Mistral, 2010) and Memorial para jóvenes
problema (Memorial for problem young people) (Galería D21, 2010), all in
Santiago. His international presence intensified after his participation in the VIII
Biennial of La Habana (2003) and in the Biennial of Shanghai (2004) as part of the
Project N11 of the Galería Muro Sur, then being invited to expositions in Germany,
Argentina, China, United States, France, Holland, Sweden, Uruguay and Spain. Part
of the selection of the Triennial of Chile 2009, held in 2010 by the curator Fernando
Castro Flórez, included the exposition Ni pena ni miedo (Neither sadness nor fear)
in Galería Blanca Soto de Madrid, in the Museo Extremeño and Iberoamericano
de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC) of Badajoz, Spain, and The Phantom Limb / El
miembro fantasma in the Gallery Open Show Studio, Athens, Greece. In 2013,
he was selected by the curator José Roca for the FLORA ars+natura Residency in
Colombia, concluding with the exposition of Naturaleza Violenta (Violent Nature)
in Bogota.
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CLAUDIO CORREA
Who is the other for you?
Not necessarily my neighbour. The other could even be the one who is in my own
space of cohabitation. The idea of the difference does not necessarily indicate that
the one who is different has to be my neighbour, which would have to be the most
chauvinist way of thinking that my neighbour is the other.
What is the relationship between the territory and creation?
In my work, the territory is mobile in the sense that the borders themselves that
demarcate the national senses are mobile and permeable.
What does political art mean?
Political art is perhaps a redundancy because all art is political. If you think that a
position is in dialogue with another, that dialogue relationship would already mark
a political position in the sense that relationships would be established that would
be horizontal, vertical or transversal. If I establish a communicational relationship
with another in a horizontal mode, it means that the political notion would be
much more democratic and egalitarian. If I establish a vertical relationship it would
mean that it is toward power. In the case it is downward, following the same
vertical logic it would mean that the speaker is the power. Therefore, I believe that
any communication system is political and art is a communication system.
What would be on the opposite side of art?
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a difficult question because for that you would have to define what art is. In
order to define art and its opposite, you would have to define the notion of the
limit of art. So that question involves bigger responses. It is almost Heideggerian in
the sense that, in order to define the notion of being, the notion of limit has to be
determined and the limit of art definitively is not life, given that art is in life. The
limit of art is the artistic, and the artistic would be all that comes to kill art. The flow
in which that artistic action is being produced, the artistic I believe would be the
opposite of art; would be the spectacle of art, the fiction, the commercialisation,
the cart of art. In order to understand art, I believe, we are going to make a
separation between the artistic, which comes to be the artistic scene; that is, the
spectators, and the artistic act, which would mean while the art is being produced.
Both things are not equal. And for me to be able to see something I have to be
outside. Therefore, it would no longer be art. I would be outside the art, would be
a spectator of a spectacle, the fiction.
Do you believe the fact of being Chilean is expressed in your work?
That is evident. The fact of being Chilean would always be expressed and when it is
understood that the artistic act has a locality. The locality I believe is fundamental
even for the global notion of art. Global art without a locality would mean an
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emptying of any type of identity and I believe that art is also a notion of identity.
Could you tell us about your work for SACO3?
It is a team of people who work in the way that was written before regarding
what is currently motivated by a project not necessarily mine. It is composed of
two things. One is a flagpole demarcating a limit, a notion of national identity.
And on the other hand there are three sails that would be the inverse of a static
notion, the idea of mobility given that the idea of a ship is a notion of travel. Then
it contains the notion of a sail. Giving mobility to a demarcating landmark perhaps
is indicating to us that those notions of identity are mobile, the same as national
identities. The work is entitled Monumento a la Antofagasta boliviana (Monument
to the Bolivian Antofagasta) and indicates that this place, before being called Chile
had already taken on an identity independent of the flag that it has. There would
be the metaphor of this mobility of the landmark which would be the flag, which
in this case is replaced by the cloth of the sail.

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Catalina González (Chile, 1979). In her work, the construction of the image
expresses a fictional space represented through photography and other media;
the exploration of the setting is a reflexive process regarding a social space
transformed into ways of inhabiting. She currently resides in Alto Hospicio, in a
process of exploring territorial margins marked by the Atacama Desert. Graduate
in Fine Arts (Universidad Arcis) and Diploma in Aesthetics and Contemporary
Thought (Universidad Diego Portales), she has done individual expositions in the
galleries AFA, Animal and Patricia Ready (Santiago). Highlighted is her participation
in the group expositions: Del Otro Lado (From the Other Side) (Centro Cultural
Palacio La Moneda), Constructed Realities (Fotogalerie, Austria), Ciudadanas
(Citizens) (Museo del Chopo, México) and Udine (Galería Tina Modotti and
Battistero Museo del Duomo, Italy). She received the award Bicentennial of Youth
Art MAVI (Museum of Visual Arts), among others, and has participated in various
contemporary art fairs.
http://catagonzalez.wix.com/cata

Artist / Chile

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CATALINA GONZÁLEZ
Who is the other for you?
It is the one who leaves the context in a territory or in a space-time and causes
certain suspicion in the place. Then there starts a taking advantage by one of the
other, and finally it is always like a cynical relationship. The other adapts, but the
territory or the place never recognise that and the other always ends up being a
scapegoat for all the problems of a territory or of a space-time and that is quite
terrible.
What is your relationship between the territory and creation?
The relationship of the territory with creation, at least in my case, is direct. You
generate a work through a territory, from a context. The work is born through a
unique complexity that has a landscape or a place.
What does political art mean?
I believe that any manifestation of cultural and of art above all, carries with it
a political expression that generates dialogue among the others, among artist
colleagues, in the world that calls it; and it generates a silent bomb, a discourse
that goes against the official political discourse. Even the official political discourse
can hold onto the artistic discourse, the creative format. But art is never going
to be directly related to politics, but rather, even though it tries to be linked will
always take its own path. It slips from its grasp. The thought is always going to
cover other artists, other worlds of interpretation. In truth, political art goes far
beyond its title. It is as if all art ends up being political.
What is the opposite of art?
The opposite of art, in general is the practical world. When you make a work
you always try to resolve many things in order to achieve the idea in a practical
manner, so it functions. There is an investigation there of the practical world, the
social world, but in the end the work has no sense in the practical world. It always
escapes common sense, the sense of society. Art is always trying to twist the sense
of society.
Do you believe the fact of being Chilean is expressed in your work?
It could be, in more of a personal sense. I was in Bolivia last year and it fascinated me
a lot being there, but I also felt the weight of being Chilean in a territory that suffers
a lot with having had a part of its landscape extirpated. There I would generate an
awareness that called me to go into depth on the theme of the landscape and for
that reason also my work us called “The landscape that unites us”. The landscape is
the only thing that escapes any belonging. Each person experiences it according to
an experience, according to a context. And it doesn’t belong to anyone in the end.
But there is an awareness of the pain it means for Bolivians not having a part of their
past, like they remain in a territorial uprooting, an uprooting from the landscape. The
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Bolivian culture comes from the culture of the Changos and there is a detachment,
basically, from their origins. And of course if you start to go into depth on that, you
understand beyond the economic need or what the sea could mean, or what a
politician might do regarding a discourse to balance other problems, to hide other
problems. Finally, the people see it as a symbolic resource, which is the strongest.
Tell us about your work in SACO3.
The process started from the analysis of who the other could be. There I was
influenced by movies such as Dogeville, by Lars von Trier. I believe that it shows very
well what happens with the other when you arrive in a territory, in an oppressive
and different landscape, and then are the scapegoat for what happens. Then
the process ended up involving the sulphur element. I started to research it as a
chemical and mineral element. And I found that sulphur dissolves in water. They
do not form a whole. There are basically juxtaposed. I did some tests and realised
that symbolically it worked for me, because the two elements live together but
in a juxtaposed way and are not able to unite as a landscape. Then I followed
with a process of searching for symbols and I found a map prior to the War of the
Pacific, from the English, that had already located the saltpetre deposits, and it
was also useful for me to symbolically understand how power generates a different

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territory; visualises the territory differently. Then I realised that I needed to come
to the ruins. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do an intervention without experiencing the place. I escaped
from Iquique for a day. And there arose the idea of occupying that specific space
that is like the entrance to the silver foundry. I noticed the gate that is there behind,
impeding the entrance. In front there is also a stairway that is coming apart and
I decided to work with an object that would create a relationship with the space,
but in a contradictory way, such as a decorative water fountain that is generally
used at the entrance to a place or to commemorate something. And I also thought
of the water as an interrupting element that generates movement among the ruin;
an activation through sound, of movement and contradiction. I started from the
round form so that it would dialogue with the tower above in architectonic form.
There is also the idea of a water mirror, but in the end the sulphur impedes it. The
water mirror is an impossibility but it is latent just the same. What would be a
vertical object is given by the water; it was to remember the theme of the sundial
and give account somewhat of all the spatiality of the place in a mini intervention,
letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s say. It speaks of shadow, of the sun, of space and time. It also has a reference
to the past. The past that unites us, basically contradicting what a political map
might say. The landscape unites us through the experience and not by a political
territory.

In its third version, the Week of Contemporary Art, SACO, is positioned in Chile and
Latin America as a cyclical opportunity for dialogue on art and territories, the physical
and the fictitious. In 2014, the Collective Group SE VENDE Mobile Contemporary Art
Platform, invites three countries: Bolivia, Peru and Chile, to measure the real distance
between the bordering pueblos through research, curatorship and interventions in the
open space.
In the residency My Neighbour, The Other, held in the Huanchaca Cultural Park from
the 16th to the 25th of August, participating from Bolivia were Lucía Querejazu, Juan
Fabbri, Andrés Bedoya and Jaime Achocalla; from Peru, Gustavo Buntinx, Harold
Hernández, César Cornejo and Elliot Túpac Urcuhuaranga; and from Chile, Rodolfo
Andaur, Damir Galaz-Mandakovic, Claudio Correa and Catalina González.
In this publication we share the diagnosis of the tripartite relations realised through
previous research, the work process in situ and its tangible results, the post-curatorial
reflections, and interviews with the participant experts.